


My Boyfriend's Boyfriend

by Endymien, lucabee



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Carla is everyone's crazy mom, Christmas, Coming Out, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Holidays with the Jaeger family, Jean doesn't know what the fuck he got himself into, M/M, Past Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein, co-conspirators to lovers, lonely jean, oh yeah and experienced self-confident Armin, sassy helpful and put upon Armin, semi-background Mikanni (it's there just not the focus), utterly ridiculous Eren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2018-09-11 16:14:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 62,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8997838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endymien/pseuds/Endymien, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucabee/pseuds/lucabee
Summary: "Need a date for Christmas? Want to make your dad mad?"
Eren Jaeger wants to piss off his parents so he does what any perfectly sane individual would do and finds a fake boyfriend on Craigslist to bring him home for Christmas. 
Jean Kirstein quickly realizes that agreeing to fake date Eren Jaeger may have been the craziest decision he ever made.
Armin Arlert just wants this whole ridiculous fake boyfriend ordeal to be over--only partially because he finds himself increasingly enamored of Eren's "boyfriend."





	1. Day 1, Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I'm finally posting this. This story was conceived way back in 2014. Lucabee and I spent hours in coffee shops outlining every single scene, but then Christmas passed and we tucked the outline away where it languished until this past November when I started writing it on a whim! Everything is written and should be up by the end of December/early January. 
> 
> I really hope you guys enjoy it! This story is very special to me. 
> 
> Small warning for very very light homophobia; mostly Eren is just inconsiderate of other's feelings and says rude things as well as the occasional homophobic slur.

"Good afternoon and happy holidays, folks! Everyone here at Survey Core Airlines would like to welcome you to flight 103, destination Shingashina. We'll be taking off in just a few minutes here, so it's time to turn all mobile devices to airplane mode in preparation for take off," the cheery voice crackled through the plane's intercom.

Mikasa replaced her earbuds, drowning the plane's elevator music with Sufjan Stevens' dulcet reminder to bring joy to the world, and dug her phone out of her pocket.

Two new messages.

 

**From: Mom**

_Can't wait until all my little angels are home for xmas_

_Text Grisha when you land you know he forgets things! kisses!!_

 

The message was punctuated with a snowflake and half a dozen candy canes. Carla had clearly discovered emojis  Eren was going to hate that. Carla Jaeger did nothing halfway and if she had discovered cute pixilated Christmas trees and gingerbread men there was a good chance she was never going to use an actual punctuation mark again. 

Grinning at the thought of Eren's angry face, Mikasa opened the second message and her amusement was instantly drowned out by the heat that rushed to her cheeks as she saw who it was from.

 

**From: Oh Captain, My Co-Captain**

_Have fun w the fam_

_dont kill anyone w/o me_

 

Mikasa sank into her scarf, letting the loose fibers tickle her nose. Her thumbs hovered over the keyboard. In her ears, Sufjan crooned something unhelpful about the wonders of love. _Calm down_ , she chastised herself, _it's just a text, it doesn't mean that she wants to kill people_ with _you, metaphorically or otherwise._ It was a useless attempt as far as pep-talks went. She shouldn't be so flustered over a stupid text, but here she was, hiding the phone screen from view of other passengers as she tried to think of an appropriate response.

She typed:

 

**To: Oh Captain, My Co-Captain**

_I'll do my best! I'll call if things get too heated_.

 

Inspired by Carla's text she added a winking emoji to the end. Then she deleted the emoji. Then the whole text. _Too familiar,_ she chided herself.

She tried again:

 

**To: Oh Captain, My Co-Captain**

_Wouldn't dream of it, miss you already._

 

Ugh, even worse. Too desperate. She needed to take it down like 500%.

She erased and typed again:

 

**To: Oh Captain, My Co-Captain**

_Have fun w your fam too, dont kill anyone w/o me either_

 

That was just dumb. And uncreative. She erased the whole thing and stared down at the empty typing box as the flight attendants began their final walks through the rows. The empty screen mocked her with its simple utility and straightforward purpose, when her mind was a jumble of a million ridiculous phrases.

Finally she typed:

 

**To: Oh Captain, My Co-Captain**

_Okay_

 

Perfect. She hit send and switched on airplane mode. The flight attendant was only a few seats away, so she stowed the phone in her coat pocket hiked her scarf further up over her nose. Time to settle in for the flight—if she started now, she'd have time to finish all of _Bend it Like Bekham_  before they got to the terminal in her hometown.

She hadn't even managed to sit back in her seat before the nagging doubt was back: what if the text sounded standoffish? Too dismissive? Ymir was always telling her she was too much of an ice queen.

Alarmed, she whipped the phone back out of her pocket and switched off airplane mode. She typed the first thing that came to mind:

 

**To: Oh Captain, My Co-Captain**

_The in-flight is that Kiera Knightly soccer movie_

 

Sent. Oh god, what if that had been dumb too? Over-sharing?

"Excuse me, ma'am," chirped a saccharine voice, "is that device in airplane mode?"

Mikasa squeezed the power button and practically chucked the phone into the seat back pocket in front of her. She looked up at the flight attendant with her perfectly coiffed hair and a glittering holly broach on her uniform lapel.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Wonderful. You have a safe flight now."

Mikasa relaxed back into her seat, ignoring the curious looks of the other passengers in her row. She couldn't wait to get home. She needed a vacation.

 

* * *

 

Three hours and a lot of homoerotic subtext later, Mikasa was hefting her suitcase and gym bag (she was only home for a week but that wasn't any excuse to let her training regime slip) into the back of Grisha's family wagon. There was a short drive between the airport and the city and then they were winding through the quaint streets of Shingashina. The sun was just thinking about setting and Christmas lights across her hometown were flickering to life, ringing snowy roofs in golden halos. Grisha had a holiday station on and was enjoying his time with his adoptive daughter in silence, so Mikasa switched her phone off airplane mode.

Two messages. _Again._

Telling herself it was stupid to feel jittery about a stupid message, she opened the first thread and failed entirely at keeping her nerves down.

 

**From: Oh Captain, My Co-Captain**

_that movie's hella gay i approve_

 

Six dumb, incorrectly capitalized words shouldn't make her heart do the things it did. Her face was uncomfortably warm, but a surreptitious glance at Grisha confirmed that he was distracted by traffic and Maria Carey's vocal runs. She would rather not have a witness to her moment of _feelings_.

She closed the thread without responding and opened the second message.

 

**From: JAEGERMISTER**

_WE HOME WHERE U @ GURL_

 

This grin, she didn't fight. She missed Eren so much that sometimes it felt like part of her was physically missing. Every year as they departed for school at the end of the summer, they promised they would talk more, that they would make time to Skype and visit, but every year they just... never managed it. It took only a few weeks for both of them to get wrapped up in their lives and assignments and classes. Their conversations in the past months had trickled to an occasional text, a tumblr reblog, Eren drunkenly texting her by mistake.

But now they were going to have a whole week together—the very thought made the Christmas lights outside the window glow a little brighter and Mikasa's heart feel a little lighter. They had so much to catch up on.

Grisha took the family wagon down Magpie Lane at his preferred "you never know where you'll find a patch of black ice" pace. Mikasa was only barely able to prevent herself from punching the gas for him. He parked the family wagon in the driveway and by the time he took the key out of the ignition she was already halfway up the glowing-candy-cane lined front walk with her suitcase balanced on her shoulder.

_Home_.

Warm light beckoned her through the windows of the old house. The red and green lights wrapped around the porch supports twinkled at her as she bounded up the stairs, and a tree peeked through the curtains of the front window. An unshakable feeling of _rightness_  settled in her as she rattled the door knob, already knowing Grisha would have forgotten to lock it when he came to get her. The door swung open with ease, and she breathed in the warm air.

She was home. There had been a while after her parents had died that she thought nowhere would ever feel like home again, but Carla, and Grisha, and Eren, and eventually Armin had worked so hard to make her part of their family. This was where she belonged, and it welcomed her back to matter how many times she left it.

There was a jumble of duffel bags in the foyer, evidence of Eren and Armin's arrival. Excitement made her heart pound faster.

"MikasaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

She barely had time to drop her bags on top of the pile when Carla burst out of the kitchen doorway in a cloud of gingerbread scented air. Mikasa had one second to take in her glittery catastrophe of a Christmas sweater before Carla was enveloping her in a hug.

"Oh, I'm so happy you're home!" Carla squeezed Mikasa with a strength that always surprised her. "So, so, so happy!"

She pulled back to beam at Mikasa, the kind lines around her eyes crinkling.

"It's good to be home," Mikasa said warmly, stepping back to let Eren take his turn jumping at her and trying to prove he could win in a wrestling match.

Except there was no Eren waiting behind his mother's shoulder when she stepped back. Something was wrong. Carla was still grinning, the foyer was outfitted with cheerful bunches of holly and grinning snowmen figurines, the scent of cookies was everywhere - everything _seemed_ right, but something was wrong.

Carla stepped towards the entryway that lead to to the living room but Mikasa beat her there. She stepped into the room, all senses alert to find the problem and take care of it—but instead of an inquisition or a casket, all she found was Eren and Armin, standing by the tree. And a stranger.

The stranger, a boy with shaggy, asymmetrically cut sandy hair and an expression like he'd just smelled something disgusting, was whispering furiously under his breath to Eren. _Her_  Eren, who seemed to be paying total attention to what this interloper was saying.

"No," Eren snapped back in what he considered a whisper but was really just short of a shout, "I'm not going to stop using Axe. I like smelling like a man, thank you very much."

"I'm _allergic_ ," the stranger hissed back.

"You can't be allergic to a smell. I should know, my dad's a doctor!"

"Oh, well, that's as good as an actual MD isn't it?"

"Yeah, pretty much!"

Mikasa blinked at the scene before her, trying to place the boy, trying to understand why a stranger would be standing in front of their Christmas tree arguing with Eren about personal hygiene. This was all wrong. But why?

"Mikasa!" Armin, standing next to Eren with his hair unusually ruffled and his eyes wider than usual, spotted her and almost melted with relief. "Welcome home."

He came to give her a hug, and as she leaned down to squeeze him tight, he whispered, "This is _not_  my fault."

"EREN!" Carla screeched from the doorway, and Eren finally left off his argument with the newcomer to stand to attention. It was a learned response, a reaction all the Jaeger children and adoptive children had to their mother's 'someone's in trouble' voice. "Come welcome your sister home!"

"Oh," Eren said, in a voice that wasn't winning any awards for the most thrilled he'd ever been to see her. It seemed, almost, like he looked a little guilty. What had Eren done now? What had Armin needed to apologize for? "Hey, Mikasa."

He gave a pathetic little wave. He didn't elaborate, but Carla didn't miss a beat.

"We have an extra special guest this year, Mikasa," she said, her voice, once again full of cheerful warmth. "Meet Jean, Eren's boyfriend."

As a college level rugby player Mikasa was used to having the air knocked out of her. She was familiar with the moment of dizzy disorientation when a shoulder crunched into her sternum and sent her flying, but she had never been this blindsided before. Eren had a boyfriend? Eren had a _boyfriend_? And he hadn't told her?

No wonder something had felt off. Her whole world had just been turned upside down.

 

* * *

 

**Two Weeks Previously**

 

Eren was in the zone. He was God, creating mankind from naught but clay, his hands flowing with creative power. More accurately, he was creating a baller giraffe from naught but clay for his Advance Sculpture class with the hot teacher. But he was still in the zone, until his phone interrupted his flow.

Clay smeared all down his pants as he dug in his back pocket for the phone, but that was what washing machines were for. Unknown caller, proclaimed the glowing screen. _Huh_. But he was feeling generous, still a God in his domain, so he answered. Maybe he'd make some poor telemarketer's day.

"Howdy, Eren Jaeger speaking."

He wedged the phone between his cheek and shoulder, and then almost dropped it when he heard the response.

"Eren!" Sang an awfully familiar voice.

"MOM? Why is your number coming up as unknown?" This was _not_  supposed to happen. Had she figured out how to block her number? If so, Eren was going to have to up his phone-avoidance game. He'd managed to dodge all twenty-one times she'd called him over the past week and he wasn't going to be defeated by some sudden tech savvy  He considered hanging up, or throwing the phone across the room, but she'd won this round and he was man enough to admit it—and also, she was still talking.

"Sweetie, I just wanted to make sure you're all set for Christmas! I can't wait for all my babies to be home again."

He could almost imagine the hearts and rainbows spilling out of the phone with her disgustingly sentimental voice, his mind already shutting down and ignoring her words - _wait_.

"Christmas? What?"

"You're coming home this year, of course! I've already talked to Armin about it, he's got the itinerary all laid out but I know how you get about travel, I wanted to call and make sure you've got your toothbrush and your pajamas and snacks for the car."

"Mom, Christmas isn't for another _two weeks_ ," he said, poking a finger angrily into the side of the giraffe's face and leaving it with more of an eye-wound than a socket. "And I don't wanna come home."

"It's the holidays, Eren, of course you're coming home. I'm making your favorite rhubarb pie!" Her cheerful tone irked him, as did her blatant attempt to bribe him home with food. Even if her rhubarb pie _was_  killer. But he wasn't going to cave to that, he was an _adult_  now, and when he put his foot down, he put it down.

"I don't want to see dad," he grumbled, as his previously baller giraffe grew some antlers as well as the wonky eye, "he made me waste two years of my life at that dumb school."

"Well," Carla's vile sweetness practically oozed out of the phone, "you're not going to that school now that you've _dropped out_ , are you? So I don't see the problem."

The best part about being the Hand of God? Smiting. Clay squidged between his fingers as he crushed the ex-giraffe into a lump of primordial goo. Tomorrow when his critique was due he'd hate himself, but right now it felt so, so good.

This. This was exactly why he didn't want to go home. His parents didn't understand him, never had. The fact that they had withdrawn part of their previously all-inclusive financial support when he dropped out of his father's beloved alma mater to pursue his dreams was proof of that. It's like they got off on being withholding.

"I've already brought your Christmas sweater! And Armin's got everything set. You wouldn't want to ruin all his plans, would you?" crooned his mother's demonic witch voice. Armin was also going on his shit list.

_Fine_ , Eren thought, glaring down at the clay. Fine, he would go home. But he wouldn't go quietly, he was going to make his parents pay for everything they had ruined for him. He had two weeks before he had to enter the lion's den, that was more than enough to come up with a plot. He would _ruin them_  like they had ruined his giraffe.

"Fine, mom. I'll be there."

_And you'll wish I'd never agreed to come home,_  he thought. He would have to work on his maniacal laugh, because he would get the last laugh.

 

* * *

 

Armin was late getting home from his bookstore job because the end of semester was always a clusterfuck of book buybacks and angry students. As he hung his coat and scarf on one of the four animal-shaped coat racks that lined the narrow entryway to the apartment he shared with Eren, he tried to put the several shouting matches and full-blown meltdowns he'd been an unfortunate participant in out of his mind.

All he wanted was a nice cup of tea, a soft blanket, and a chance to read through notes for his finals; Armin had simple dreams.

Dreams his roommate seemed determined to crush.

"Eren, please tell me your aren't on Craisglist."

Eren, at his (free, craigslist) desk on his (free, craigslist) chair, hunched before his eclectic collection of ($10-$30, craigslist) computer monitors, didn't even bother to minimize the familiarly ominous blue text to hide his guilt.

Armin groaned.

"Just promise me you're not buying more stained glass. We rent! We couldn't install those if we wanted to!"

The last piece had been a fucking _antique_ _rose window_ —Armin didn't even want to think about how many times it had almost broken before he managed to find someone to resell it to. He thought longingly, as he often did, of just canceling their internet and doing his work from the bookstore or the library.

He had thought Eren's craigslist addiction was finally under control. It had been weeks since he had returned to their (very small) shared space with some new novelty item they didn't need that he had gotten at some crazy deal. At its peak, their apartment had looked like a Goodwill donation center or the beginning to a hoarding nightmare. Relics that Armin hadn't managed to resell (usually at a profit, though he would never admit it to Eren) still lingered: the animal coat hangers, Eren's five computer monitors that were all various shades of purple or pink.

"You know," Armin said, walking towards his room to drop his backpack, "at this point I'd rather walk in on you watching porn than on Craigslist?"

Eren still wasn't responding, leaned close to his center screen and scrolling furiously, so Armin peered at his screen as he passed to see what god-awful  unnecessary item Eren was about to acquire. As usual, Eren had separate tabs pulled up on each screen so he could see all his likely options spread out before him at once.

Armin skimmed down the listings, and choked.

_ISO boyfriend for tonight must have truck and big dick_

_seeking twink for fun and games, tight a$$ only_

_Daddy searching 4 his baby_

_xxxhardcore bb at mine? xxx_

"Eren!" Armin squeaked, "what the hell are you looking at?"

Eren finally looked up, the purple of his screens making his face flushed and alien, and grinned at Armin.

"I'm finding a boyfriend!" He said it so proudly and matter-of-factly that Armin was caught off guard. Eren, who tried diasterously to flirt with pretty girls at every party they attended, who still tried to insist he was 100% heterosexual after that fling with his sculpting professor, who refused Armin's offers of setting him up with literally _any_  of Armin's friends regardless of gender, suddenly wanted a boyfriend? And his first thought was _Craigslist?_

Well. Of course it was.

"Eren," Armin said in the calmest voice he was able to summon - which wasn't very calm _at all_ , given the circumstances, "do you know what type of people use the personals on Craigslist? Creepy, old, STD-ridden, serial killers trawling for young new victims. You're going to get kidnapped and your body is going to be dumped in the Trost woods and _I'm_  going to have to explain to your mother the circumstances of your death and I am _extremely unwilling to do that_."

"Calm down, Sandra Dee," Eren waved him off breezily, "I'm not going to _actually_  hook up with any of these guys."

"Eren, I dont think 'big daddy truckerxxx' is looking for a serious, slow building relationship."

"Yeah, but I'm not looking for a _real_  boyfriend," Eren said, as if that made any sense at all. Armin made a semi-strangled 'go on' noise, and Eren finally spun his chair to look at him.

"Mom called today, she managed to get past my caller ID somehow," he said with a pointed look at Armin, who refused to either confirm nor deny. Things were, unfortunately, starting to make some semblance of sense. Most of Eren's worst-conceived-of stunts usually involved his parents, somehow. "Anyways, I was trying to think of ways to piss off my parents, since they're making us come home for Christmas, and I remembered this listing I saw yesterday. I'm gonna bring home some asshole gay boyfriend and fuck with their picture perfect Christmas!"

He didn't bother to explain why he had been searching the m/m personals before conceiving of this plan, and Armin didn't ask. There were just...too many things. Too many things wrong with this whole plan. And unfortunately, the more things wrong with a plan, usually the more convinced Eren was that it would go off without a hitch.

Armin groaned again. _Is there any point in trying to talk him out of this? Probably not._ When Eren was determined he was a force to be reckoned with. He was going to pursue this idea with or without Armin's blessing and if Armin helped him at least he could try to make sure Eren didn't bring an ax murderer to Christmas. He gave up, dropping his bag onto the couch and pulling a chair over from their kitchen table.

"And you didn't want to invite a friend to play the part?"

"Nah," said Eren, turning back to scroll madly through various screens, eyes scanning the hundreds of listings. "I considered Thomas for like half a second, but could you imagine kissing Thomas?"

Armin rolled his eyes. He couldn't really hold that slight against Eren, because for the handful of months Armin and Thomas had been casually seeing each other, Thomas had proven himself to be a lousy kisser.

"And you're really sure you want to get a boyfriend of Craigslist? Real or otherwise? What about the school paper?"

Eren huffed, pausing his scrolling to close his eyes and take the deep breath required to summon the drama that only Eren possessed.

"Craigslist has never failed me before," he said with feeling. "It is a magical land of opportunity. Armin, you wouldn't understand. You're the unenlightened."

Armin, who considered himself more than enlightened on the benefits _and_  the determents of Craigslist, sighed and reclined back in his chair. How best to mitigate the risks involved in this scheme? He lost himself in contingency plans until Eren shouted and he jumped.

"Here! Here it is!" Eren crowed triumphantly. "I can't believe I didn't respond as soon as I found it!"

He patted the keyboard fondly, and Armin leaned closer to read the subject line:

**Need a date for Christmas? Want to make your dad mad?**

"Oh, for goodness sake," Armin sighed. Eren clicked into the link and sighed in contentment, which disturbed Armin a little more than he wanted to think about. The body of the listing read:

**It's the holidays. Want to skip all the jibes and interrogations about why you're still single? Want to get back at your parents for all the times they set your up with neighbors' kids? Just want to prove that you've got an exciting new guy in your life? Ain't nobody got time for the haters.**

**I'm a 23 y/o male, grad student, edgy haircut. I can be the entitled asshole or the unemployed slob fighting the man. I am willing to do the following on request:**

**\- hit on your siblings in front of your parents**

**\- start arguments about religion and/or politics**

**\- pretend to get drunk and rowdy**

**\- propose to you in front of extended conservative relatives**

**\- pretend I just got out of jail**

**\- be a cool dude they're jealous of**

**Things I am unwilling to do:**

**\- actually date you**

**So if you would like me to be your platonic date for the holidays to cause a little mayhem and torment your family, I'm your man. This offer is open to anyone of any gender or sexual orientation. All I ask for payment is free food and lodging for the duration of the holidays.**

It was... actually perfectly tailored to Eren's exact situation. And the guy sounded less like an ax murderer and more like a tumblr troll, so that was a good sign. There was a blurry picture attached to the posting of a tallish, blondish guy slouched on a shitty couch, shaggy hair and goatee. He looked a little familiar, Armin thought, but if he lived in the area maybe they had passed on the street. He would actually be kind of cute, without the goatee.

"I'm gonna do it," Eren said with his hell-or-high-water voice.

"Fine," Armin sighed, "but what I said about not being the barer of bad news still stands if Carla kills you herself."

 

* * *

 

Mr. Want-to-make-your-dad-mad? turned out to be named Jean, and a very prompt responder to emails. After a few days of emailing back and forth to iron out the details, Eren excitedly drew up a contract. Armin wasn't exactly sure that a sketchy Craigslist transaction required a contract, and he was pretty sure what Eren came up with was nowhere close to making it legally binding, but he supposed getting them all on the same page was necessary to keep this ruse from imploding immediately.

Armin looked over the final draft of the contract (printed on one of Eren's three free, lightly used craigslist printers) as he sat in his shitty old car, parked outside the grocery store where they were meant to meet Jean. Eren was in the Whole Foods buying god knows what for the drive.

**Agreement to Pisseth Offeth My Parents**

**On December 21st, Eren Jaeger and Jean Kirstein hereby agree to the following terms:**

**\- Objective: shock and horrify Carla and Grisha Jaeger with the fact that their son is super gay and has horrible taste in men**

**\- Method: Jean and Eren will act like a gross romantic couple in front of everyone (aside from Armin Artlet and any other individual Eren designates) from the moment they arrive at the Jaeger residence on December 21st to the moment they leave on December 27th. Both will strive to make the relationship appear real but also gross and upsetting**

**\- Compensation: Eren will pay all travel expenses (of which there will be none, because we're driving) and provide Jean with free food for the duration of this act**

**\- Caveat: There will be no posts concerning this pseudo-relationship on any social media site.**

**\- Bottom line: Under no circumstances will Carla and Grisha be informed that this is a fake relationship**

Under this legally suspect and morally deranged text were three lines for signatures. It was like Eren had googled the general idea of contracts for five minutes, given up, and made it up as he went along. Which, probably, was exactly how it had happened. The no-social-media rule had been a requirement of Jean's. Armin had tried to get Eren to include a section on what physical contact they would be comfortable sharing, but he had waved Armin off. Apparently Eren had made it clear in his emails that he wast into dudes and that there would be no funny business. Knowing the type of people it was possible to run into via Craigslist (even if this Jean character just seemed goofy and non-threatening), Armin still vowed to keep an eye on things in case the guy seemed a little too assertive about trapping Eren under the mistletoe.

Eren slammed back into the car with five minutes to go to their meet time, phone wedged between his shoulder as he swung two overflowing paper bags.

"Hey mom. Yeah, we're heading out - _yes_  we checked the weather conditions," Eren shouted into the phone, handing the bags to Armin to toss in the back seat so he could pull himself into the passenger seat. " _yes_ , we - Jesus Christ, mom, we'll be there in a few hours, okay?"

_Maybe_ , Armin thought, _just maybe Eren will hang up the phone, cancel with Jean, and we can all forget this ever happened_ —

"Oh yeah, and mom," Eren said, pulling the lever on his seat to recline and prop his feet up on the dashboard. He was definitely smirking. It was a smirk that haunted Armin's nightmares, the Eren 'Never-Give-Up' Jaeger smirk. "I'm bringing my boyfriend."

He hung up dramatically and tossed the phone on the dash, where it bounced and then proceeded to buzz with what Armin assumed were Carla's several frantic texts. Eren beamed at him. Armin tried to decide if he should just turn the car around now.

But the tank was full, the seed was planted, and their fate was sealed. Armin was actually somewhat surprised that Eren had chosen to give his mother even a few hours notice, but he supposed it was a small mercy.

A knock at the window interrupted Armin's thoughts and both boys jumped. Maybe a semi-deserted parking lot wasn't the best time for this. But Armin fought his irrational thoughts of ax murderers and buzzed down the window to reveal—

"What the fuck are _you_  doing here?" Eren demanded, leaning across the gearshift. The guy peering into the car was definitely the guy from the craigslist ad, but he had shaved off the unfortunate goatee and gotten a better haircut than he had in the picture. Like this, he looked even more familiar, but Armin couldn't place him.

"Uh, I'm Jean? Are you Eren?" Jean looked like he was rapidly rethinking this whole plan, and maybe sharing Armin's misgivings about ax murderers. Armin wasn't sure if Eren had mentioned him, in his emails.

"No," Eren said, accusingly. "You're _pizza guy_."

Which, just. What? Jean squinted at Eren like he wast sure what language he was speaking. Even Armin, who was the closest one could get to a fluent Eren-speaker, was lost. Until—

Oh. _Oh no._

"It's you!" Jean shouted, eyes widening in realization as he pointed at Eren. "Pineapple boy!"

No wonder neither of them had recognized Jean in his blurry craiglist photo, the last time they had seen him it had been three months ago at 2:00 A.M. in the pouring rain.

He delivered for Steamies, a local chain with second-rate pizza that benefited from being the only pizza joint in town with 24/7 delivery. On the evening in question, Armin had been crunching for midterms while Eren pulled an all-nighter to experiment with a "full body finger painting" idea he was considering for a school project. At 2:00, when Eren had cleaned off between paint colors, he announced that they were ordering pizza. Brain dead from pouring over his notes, Armin happily agreed.

The issue came when the pizza arrive thirty minutes later (fifteen minutes after Eren had started griping that it was taking too long). The poor delivery guy (Jean) looked miserable in a plastic poncho, and the sad looking warming bag had gotten soaked on the walk from the car to their first floor apartment unit. When Jean handed over the boxes they were thankfully dry, but all the heat had been leached out of them. _It's not the poor bastard's fault,_  Armin remembered thinking _, that warming bag looks like a glorified burlap sack._

He was fishing out his wallet for some bills to tip with when Eren ripped open his box and scoffed, "Did you even fucking bake this thing?"

Jean was apparently not about to take shit from someone who had spent the last few hours in a dry, heated apartment and asked what Eren expected when it was fucking freezing and the sky was shitting buckets. The situation devolved from there. Armin distinctly remembered Eren shouting "It's called steamies, do you see any steam?" and Jean insulting the intelligence of anyone who would put pineapple on their pizza (Eren). Fearing a noise complaint Armin dug as random handful of small bills out of his wallet, shoved them at Jean's chest, and slammed the door shut between the two fighting men, perhaps a little more abruptly than he should have. 

This did not bode well for the next week. Eren's plan was already in shambles.

"Are you like, stalking me? Is this revenge?" Jean demanded.

"Like you're worth stalking," Eren scoffed.

"Okay, you know what? I'm just gonna go. This is," Jean shook his head and threw up his hands. "this is nuts. Bye, dudes."

_And that,_ Armin thought with no little relief as Jean walked away from the car, _is that_. Except-

"No, wait, come back!" Eren shouted, almost launching himself into Armin's lap to shout out the window. "This is _perfect_ , my parents will _hate you!"_

"Wow, because I care!" Jean shouted back over his shoulder. He kept walking.

"Wait, wait! Armin, follow him!"

"Eren-"

"Just trust me, dude," Eren said, which were probably the invocation to some ancient curse for how many times they had been followed by disaster for Armin. He sighed but complied, buckling his seatbelt and pulling the car slowly up to roll beside Jean as he trudged through the parking lot.

"Dude, my mom makes the _best_  Christmas food!" Eren shouted, still over Armin. Jean rolled his eyes but kept walking.

"Think about it - chocolate pudding! Snickerdoodles!"

"Keep tryin', loser," Jean scoffed. They were coming up to the entrance to the parking lot, Eren had better convince him soon or Armin would have to go back to following traffic laws.

"Roast beef! Honeyed ham! Cranberry gravy, mashed potatoes, ambrosia, unhealthy salads, lasagna!"

It was possible Jean was walking a little slower than he had been before. Eren fumbled, trying to think of another category of food he hadn't already considered.

"Rhubarb pie," Armin reminded him, but he was watching Jean. He saw when Jean flicked his gaze over to meet his, and the moment of indecision.

"Oh, right, rhubarb pie!" Eren shouted. "And gingerbread, and peppermint brittle, and -"

"Okay, okay!" Jean threw his hands in the air, coming to a full stop and facing their car. "I'll do it! Jesus! Just open the door and _shut up_."

Eren whooped and punched the roof of the car—something Armin had instructed him _not_  to do—as Armin unlocked the door behind him and Jean clambered in. He made a sort of wheezy chuckle, a cackle? and rubbed his hands together like a B-movie villain.

"Yesss, this is going to be soooo goood!" Eren crooned, already reaching for the Ipod to pump some victory tunes.

"Just fuckin' drive," Jean said with an eyeroll, crossing his arms and wiggling himself into the seat for a long haul.

_This cant end well,_  Armin thought.

 

* * *

 

The drive from Trost to Shingashina only took four hours, but it felt like an eternity. Eren's victory music turned out to be _Victorious_ , by Panic! At the disco, followed by three entire albums of Fall Out Boy and accompanied by Eren's off-key shouting the whole time. At the two hour mark, Jean made them pull into a gas station for refreshments and, Armin suspected, a break from Eren's voice.

"Buy me a drink, _boyfriend_ ," Jean demanded. 

"Uh, how about no?" Eren shot back, but Jean kicked the back of his seat. 

"Um, how about, according to the contract you owe me food and drink for the next six days, and I want a drink now?"

Eren scowled, but slammed his way out of the car and into the station. Armin went to fill up the tank, even though it didn't really need it. When he came back, Jean was staring at his phone and tapping away. Armin sighed, he was going to have to spend Christmas with this guy, they might as well not be complete strangers.

"Hey," Armin said, and Jean looked up. He had warm almost tawny brown eyes. "I'm sorry Eren's been so... shouty. He's a really good guy, he's just stressed."

Jean rolled his eyes.

"That's what they all say. I'll believe it when I see it."

"Fair enough. Just let me know if you need a break, and I'll see what I can do. If you'll believe it, his family is exactly the same."

"I refuse to believe," Jean said, but he looked a little scared by the thought, "that there can be multiple people as intense as Eren anywhere."

"Oh, believe it," Armin chuckled.

Comfortable silence settled over the car, and Armin noticed the unplugged aux cord lying over the center console.

"Why dont you DJ for the rest of the drive?" He asked. It was a gesture of goodwill, and hopefully Jean's music tastes were a little less energetic.

As it turned out, Armin was right. Jean's musical taste ran towards Bright Eyes and sad-boy-guitar music, much to Eren's distaste. Armin felt the mellow strum of the chords seeming into his tightly wound muscles and relaxing him. It wasn't his favorite genre but it was nice. 

"Ugh, don't you have _anything_ that doesn't sound like a bunch of sad men at a depressed circle jerk?" Eren moaned after song number three. 

Armin intervened before Jean could defend his music choices and start another argument, "My car, my rules: Jean's DJing for the rest of the drive."

Eren sulked silently the rest of the way.

_I never thought of running_ , _my feet just led the way,_ sang Bright Eyes, as Armin drove them towards home.


	2. Day 1, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Jaeger clan sits down for dinner, Eren makes his first overtures at pissing off his parents, and Armin and Jean wind up in an unexpected sleeping arrangement.

 "EREN JAEGER!" The front door of the Jaeger household swung on it's hinges as Carla Jaeger stomped across the yard, her small frame drowning in a parka and pair of snow boots.

Armin braced himself, grateful that he was still on the far side of the car. Eren had inherited every ounce of indignant energy from his mother. Happy, sad, or angry, Carla was a force to be reckoned with.

"Oh man," Eren was practically vibrating with excitement, "She's so pissed. This is so great."

Armin wasn't so sure. His stomach was twisting in knots at the very thought that Carla might be genuinely upset that Eren brought a boy home instead of a girl. Back in Trost it had all been hypothetical; he had been too busy considering logistics to think about how he would feel if Carla, the closest person he had left to a parent, refused to accept Eren's sexuality—and by extension Armin's. He had never really brought up the fact that he was gay to Carla and Grisha, not that he'd ever tried to hide it either, but they must have missed the signs if Eren "coming out" was going to be this dramatic. But now they were at the moment of reckoning and it was too late to turn back. He swallowed down his nausea and watched as Carla steamed under her bauble-topped knit cap.

"How dare you! I thought I raised my son better than this!"

Armin clenched his hand around his car key; cold metal bit into his skin.

"You give your poor mother only four hours to find you and your boyfriend MATCHING CHRISTMAS SWEATERS?" Carla screeched, coming to a stop in front of Eren and planting hands on hips. "Do you know how hard it is to find _any_  stores that haven't sold out of their Christmas sweater stock this close to the big day?"

_What? Carla's mad about Christmas sweaters?_ He must be hearing things wrong. 

"Huh?" Eren spluttered.

But Carla turned on her snow boot clad heel and marched back to the house, muttering about boys not appreciating their mothers. Armin scrambled for his duffel bag and hurried after her, Eren and Jean following suit. When they stepped through the front door Carla was waiting for them with a stormy expression, holding up the answer to their questions: two identical red sweaters sporting a pair of reindeer bucks, their antlers interlocked to form a heart and the words "Keep the Yuletide Gay" above them in blocky green knit.

_Well,_ Armin thought to himself, noticing the way the yarn on the word "gay" shimmered when moved side to side, _that's a pleasant surprise._

"These were the most appropriately themed sweaters I could find on such sort notice, so no complaining that you don't like the color," Carla growled at Eren as she thrust one into his arms. He accepted it with the dazed look of someone still trying to mentally catch up, but Carla was already turning her 1000 watt smile on Jean. Armin could swear he saw him flinch.

"And what's your name, sweetheart?" she asked, her voice suddenly sweet and matronly. 

"It's, uh, j—," Jean had to clear his throat a few times, "Jean."

"I'm so sorry we weren't more prepared for you, Jean! Can you believe my inconsiderate son only gave me four hours notice? You'd think I'd raised him in a barn." She seemed to notice Jean's shell shocked expression and reeled back her effervescence. Her smile softened and she carefully folded the second sweater before offering it to him.

"I am just so happy to have you here. Eren hasn't really had any friends but Armin and Mikasa since he was small, so I knew better than to hope he'd be bringing a special someone home for the holidays anytime soon. I hope you feel welcome. Feel free to call me Carla, Armin does."

"Mooommm," Eren whined. No one paid any attention. Carla turned and smiled at Armin, no different than she ever had, and he was _home_. 

"Hi Armin," she said with a toothy smile he returned. "Come give me a hug."

Carla had a way of making people feel wanted and welcome. Now that he was in her presence again, he couldn't think why he would have worried that she would have anything but love for any of them. Eren was going to have his work cut out for him if he wanted to get her to hate Jean. She squeezed him around the ribs, her own scratchy Christmas sweater tickling his chin.

"Oh, it's just so good to have you all here. Just leave your bags by the door. I'll have Grisha bring them up to your rooms. Oh, Armin, let me go fetch your sweater!"

Carla bustled away, leaving them in the foyer still in their parkas and snow dusted boots. Armin unzipped his jacket and showed a still shell-shocked Jean the closet where they stored their snow gear. He'd tried to warn him that the rest of the Jaeger family was as forcefully energetic as Eren, but Jean still seemed overwhelmed. Poor guy, Armin was starting to think that Eren wasn't the one he would have to be watching out for this trip. Eren, meanwhile hadn't moved away from the front door. His face was screwed up like he was trying to solve a particularly difficult math problem; the first part of his plan hadn't gone as expected. Frankly, Armin was grateful, but if Eren was one thing it was tenacious. He'd find a way to use his fake boyfriend to piss off his parents before the night was out.

A tall, thin man with round glasses and a thin mustache wandered out of the kitchen. Grisha didn't seem to notice the trio of young men in his foyer as he plodded a slow path across the tile, staring thoughtfully into a mug of tea.

"Hey, Dad." Eren said stepping toward Jean and emphatically grabbing his hand. Jean made a less than pleased face but allowed Eren to lock their fingers together.

Grisha stopped in his tracks to blink at Eren. "Oh, hello son." He gestured vaguely with one hand, "Your mother seems to be in high spirits." Then, without seeming to even notice Jean, he continued on his way to the door that led to the basement.

Eren made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and released Jean's hand to moodily shuck off his parka.

The crease between Jean's brows was growing deeper and deeper. He caught Armin looking at him and on the opened his mouth but couldn't seem to figure out what to ask. Armin took pity on him and reached over to pat him reassuringly on the arm.

"It's not you. They're always like this. You'll get used to this."

Jean closed his mouth but the crease in his brows didn't ease. He did not look reassured.

Poor, unsuspecting Jean. The Jaegers were amazing, charming, utterly baffling people—Armin wondered if Jean had any idea what he had signed up for.

 

* * *

 

 

Mikasa arrived shortly after they did and Carla ushered everyone into the dinning room for a big family dinner. Carla was very proud of her culinary prowess, and her enthusiasm for cooking generally peaked around Christmas time when her enthusiasm for life was at its annual high. The result was a week's worth of elaborate and delicious dinners. 

They passed around baskets of home baked garlic rolls and a casserole dish of lasagna, looking like a family out of a fifties catalog in their holiday sweaters. Carla's sweater depicted a curling strand of Christmas lights, each bulb a different color of glittery yarn. Mikasa had a nice dark green sweater with a white and gold Christmas tree. Armin's sweater was, in his opinion, both objectively awful and ironically golden. It was a scratchy baby blue with the word "Hark!" and a cherubic, yellow-haired angel on the front who, as Eren pointed out, looked strikingly like Armin.

Grisha, the only sweater-less individual in the room, was monologuing about some Doctors Without Boarders trip he had been on back in the day. Armin smiled politely in Grisha's direction, but his attention was on the boys across from him. Jean had cuffed the sleeves of his sweater and the shocking red surprisingly didn't look half bad on him. He sat uncomfortably straight in his chair, looking warily between his and Eren's ostentatiously entwined fingers and Eren's parents, seated at either end of the table. If Armin didn't know better, he would think Jean was having the typical meet-the-parents jitters. Eren meanwhile had adopted a smug grin. He had bounced back from the disappointing lack of drama at their arrival and was already anticipating future chaos. 

Armin shot a surreptitious look Mikasa's direction as she passed him the lasagna. She was quiet. Mikasa was always quiet, but usually after a whole semester of not being around Eren she could be relied upon to monopolize his time for the Christmas week. But Eren was, if accidentally, refusing to be monopolized and Mikasa seemed, well—they really should have told her ahead of time. How would _he_  feel if Mikasa suddenly turned up with a girlfriend he had never heard of? Armin wanted to slap himself and Eren—mostly Eren—for forgetting to let her know. He wondered if they could find a way to tell her the relationship was a charade without Carla hearing. She would be willing to play along if Eren asked her to. Probably.

There was a pop as Carla uncorked a bottle of wine and a clink as she set out a row of glasses and began pouring. "Armin, Mikasa, would you like a glass?" They accepted graciously. "How about you Jean, you're twenty-one right?"

"Twenty-three actually."

"Yeah, the age gap really works for me," Eren drawled, reaching for one of the glasses of wine. "I don't think I would ever date someone my _own age_."

"Eren!" Carla swatted his hand away. "You can have wine with dinner when you're twenty-one."

"Oh, c'mon!" Eren groused. "I'm only three months away!" His pout transformed into mischievous look as inspiration glinted in his eyes. "You know, Jean buys beer for me all the time."

Armin sighed,  _And so it begins._

Carla's lips pursed and gaze shifted to Jean. Jean gave her a smile that could have been a grimace and, in a gesture too uncomfortable to look natural, set his free hand on top of their interlocked fingers. "I buy him beer because his tastes are terrible. He'd be drinking Coors Light if I wasn't there to stop him! I'm much more of a Cabernet Savignion person myself." He plucked the wine glass Eren had been reaching for and swilled it like he knew what he was doing.

There was a moment of silence as Carla digested Jean's words. Armin busied himself with smoothing his napkin across his lap, determined to not make eye contact with either party when things started to fall apart. But the next thing he heard was a clink of glass and he looked up to see Carla tapping her glass against Jean's. "A man after my own heart!"

Eren's smug grin faltered. "Really, Mom? I thought you'd be pissed."

Carla set her wine glass down and neatly spread her own napkin over her lap. "You're an adult now. If you choose to violate the law in your own home that is your prerogative. I trust you to make your own choices so long as you obey my rules while you're under my roof."

Jean looked surprised. Eren looked annoyed.

"Babe, give me a sip of that," he whined.

Jean looked at him like he was crazy, but before he could remember that he was supposed to be pissing off Carla, Carla was tugging on Eren's ear. "Oh no you don't, mister."

She passed the last glass of wine down the table to Grisha and picked up her fork. That was clearly the end of that conversation. Armin followed suit and dug into his delicious goopy mix of mozzarella and tomato sauce, savoring the food before Eren's antics could make him too uncomfortable to eat.

Carla sipped her wine and considered Jean over her glass. "So, boys, you have to tell us how you met."

"It's like the least romantic story you've ever heard," Eren said proudly, a string of mozzarella hanging out the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah," Jean the sarcasm dripping from his voice no charade now, "I delivered a pizza to his place and he chewed me out for the weather not being under my control."

"No," Eren said with an eye roll, "I chewed you out because you're horrible at your job. He's a pizza delivery boy," he announced with particular relish. Armin tracked Eren's eyes as they darted between his parents, waiting for one of them to look disappointed or upset.

"He hardly makes _any money_ ," Eren added for emphasis.

Jean's ears were turning red. He stabbed at his salad more aggressively than the innocent tufts of lettuce deserved. Armin could sense trouble brewing. The bad boyfriend thing was supposed to be an act, but Eren was making disparaging comments about Jean's actual life. He was getting dangerously close to wounding Jean's pride, and if their previous altercations were anything to go by, Jean had a very short fuse.

"Oh, well," Carla did look a little startled. "That's alright. Money isn't everything and I'm sure it's a taxing job."

"Oh no," Eren twirled his fork in a glob of cheese, clearly pleased by the concern in his mother's voice, "he mostly just dawdles and lets people's pizzas get cold."

"That's not true!" Jean's fork clattered onto his plate. "Babe," he added through gritted teeth. He turned to Carla and Armin was surprised to hear a pleading edge in his voice, "I work three jobs. I'm trying to save up for grad school."

There was a muffled thump and Jean's nose wrinkled in pain. Armin was almost certain that Eren had stomped on his foot, but Jean wasn't back-pedaling.

_Well, this is interesting._

"What did you study, John?" Grisha piped up from the other end of the table. Eren ground his teeth audibly.

"Philosophy."

"It's a useless degree," Eren interjected.

"Well at least he _has_ a degree," Carla said pointedly.

"And I'm hoping to get my PhD eventually," Jean was still looking hopefully at Carla, as if trying to gage her approval.

"And then he'll become a cashier at Target, like every other useless philosophy major."

"I assume that you know our Eren dropped out," Grisha said matter-of-factly. "He was going to be, well not a doctor, but an ultrasound tech at least—maybe a pharmacist. But he threw it all away to take art classes at that community college out in Trost."

Armin was starting to worry about how much grinding Eren's teeth could take without suffering damage.

"Mikasa is following the family path though," Grisha continued proudly, oblivious to the irritation rolling off Eren in waves. "She is going to be a physical therapist." Mikasa nodded vaguely in agreement and returned to her previous occupation of staring at Jean while taking small bites of food.

"And Armin is doing quite well too. What exactly is it that you're studying again Armin?"

Armin quickly swallowed the lasagna he had been chewing, "Anthropology."

Eren huffed, "We get it, Mikasa's gonna do medicine, Armin's going to be the next Indiana Jones. Can we move on?"

"Indiana Jones was an archaeologist not an anthropologist," Jean said at the exact time Armin did.

Armin looked across the table at Jean in surprise and Jean looked sheepishly back. It was a good look on him. Armin could see why Carla was so charmed. But, more importantly, someone at the table actually knew what anthropology was.

"Are you looking into grad schools?" Jean asked, still sheepish.

"Yeah, Rose University has a really good program."

"Have you considered Jinae? I've heard they have a great pre-modern anthropology department."

Armin could feel his eyebrows creeping upward. This was a strange well of knowledge to discover.

"Yes, actually. It's my second choice so far."

"I was thinking about applying to Jinae's philosophy PhD, but I think Rose has a better program for my field."

Armin set down his fork, leaning forward on his elbows. "What's your preferred area?"

"I mean," Jean rubbed the back of his neck, he'd abandoned his eating utensils as well, "if I had to choose I'd say biopolitics."

"Like Foucault?"

"Starting with him. Have you read any Agamben?"

"We GET IT," Eren interrupted, and Armin leaned back in his chair. He'd forgotten they had an audience. "Armin wants to go to school to become boring Indian Jones and Jean wants to go to school to become a boring nerd."

Jean turned on Eren with a shark like sneer, "Don't get all huffy, babe, just because you and I don't share the same tastes in literally anything."

"I'm glad I don't share your tastes. Then I would have to read dumb books no one cares about and listen to sad boys masturbating."

_Oh God, not this argument again._ Armin drowned his exasperation in his wine glass. Only when he set the glass back down did he notice the awkward silence that had descended on the table. Judging by the wide-eyed shock in Carla's eyes and Grisha's disgruntled expression, they had taken Eren's comment literally, and Jean and Eren were too busy glaring at each other to correct them.

Armin cleared his throat, "What Eren means is that Jean enjoys listening to melancholy indie singer-songwriters whose style Eren finds self-indulgent."

Mikasa snorted into her wine glass and the awkward tension eased, although Armin could feel that no one was really that comfortable anymore. Even Eren, who wanted to sow discord, was too busy glaring at Jean to notice how well he was doing.

Eren snagged Jean by the collar of his sweater and pulled him close to whisper something furiously in his ear. Jean winced and pulled back, his eyes darting nervously to Carla. Armin watched curiously. Whatever Jean's hangup with Carla was, it was a fascinating development. Was he really scared enough of her that he would risk his agreement with Eren? Carla could be terrifying but on a scale from her most subdued to her most terrifyingly energetic, she had barely passed 'pleasantly excited' that evening.

Jean changed his focus to Mikasa. He tilted his head and shot her a small smile that probably would have been cute if it didn't look so strained. "Mikasa, you have the most beautiful hair I have ever seen."

Eren scoffed and said, too enthusiastically, "Babe, are you trying to flirt with Mikasa while I'm right here? She's my sister!"

Carla  _tsked_ , "Oh, Eren don't tease him. You gay boys always notice that sort of thing." She pressed her fingers to her lips. "Oh no, is that a stereotype?"

"It's just my roommates are both hair stylists," Jean said quickly then winced as his toes were once again stomped on.

Armin expected Eren to start whining again, but he just tilted his head against Jean's shoulder. There was a pout on his lips but a mischievous look in his eyes that was far more alarming. Armin had a premonition that he was going to hate whatever Eren was about to say. "How come you never tell _me_ my hair is beautiful, _Daddy_?"

That was it. Armin pushed his plate away; Eren had swiftly vanquished his appetite. Jean's face was rapidly turning an ugly shade of red. Eren was looking pleased with himself and Mikasa was looking like she was tensed to vault over the table and strangle Jean, or maybe Eren. Grisha was looking concerned down at his lasagna, although whether that was Eren's comment or his internal musings was anyone's guess.

Carla, cleared her throat and swiftly switched the conversation, "So Mikasa, how is Rugby going?"

As dinner wrapped up, it was difficult to gage the success of Eren's plan. On the one hand, there had been more uncomfortable moments at dinner than usual, but on the other hand, as the night wore on, Carla's approval of Jean seemed to grow. For his part, Jean had either forgotten his agreement with Eren, gotten angry enough at Eren to sabotage him, or was sufficiently terrified in Carla's presence that he was more focused on gaining Carla's approval than pissing her off.

"Let me take that," Jean stood as Carla began to clear the table and took her cleared plate from her. Carla watched him with fond amusement before swatting Eren on the shoulder.

"Eren, help your boyfriend."

"Mooooom," but he picked up the salad bowl and shuffled after Jean into the kitchen.

Carla divided the rest of the bottle of wine between their four glasses and conversation drifted toward the usual Shingashina gossip: weddings, funerals, new babies, etc. The occasional clang and swear came from the kitchen where Eren and Jean were washing dishes.

Carla was just detailing the horrid, flashy car the new couple down the street had bought when she stopped with a dramatic gasp. Armin twisted around in alarm only to find Eren and Jean both attempting to squeeze through the kitchen doorway while simultaneously trying to shove the other back into the kitchen.

"Boys! Look where you are!" Carla exclaimed, looking pointedly at the door jam above their heads where a spring of mistletoe dangled from a red ribbon.

They stopped pushing each other to gaze upward. Jean's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.

"Now Jean, you should probably know that we are very serious about mistletoe in this house. It is our favorite holiday tradition!"

That might be an overstatement since _every_ Christmas tradition was Carla's favorite holiday tradition, but mistletoe kisses were a staple at the Jaegers. There was no way they could pull of this ruse without at least one kiss. Armin took a sip of wine to hide his amusement as the two boys under the mistletoe gaped at Carla.

_This_ , this was why Armin had wanted Eren to discuss physical boundaries upfront. Jean already seemed so overwhelmed by the situation, would this be the thing that broke them?

"Don't be shy boys, it's good luck!" Carla insisted. 

Slowly Eren and Jean turned to face each other. They locked eyes and something in both of their gazes solidified. Armin didn't know Jean's expressions as well, but Eren had that hell-or-high-water look again. They were going for it.

Jean's hands clamped onto Eren's arms as Eren pressed up, his lips colliding with Jean's with such force that Jean staggered backward, nearly falling into the door frame until Eren steadied him with two hands on his butt. Jean jumped at the contact and bit down on Eren's lip, and then pushed into the movement like he meant it.

It was the most violent and accidental kiss Armin had ever seen. It was, also, inexplicably arousing.

Armin swigged his wine, feeling dizzy and too warm. _Eren and Jean are both objectively attractive men,_  he reasoned. _And I am going through a dry spell._ That, and Jean's jaw looked like it was carved from marble when he moved his mouth against Eren's. Armin finished off his glass, the wine adding to the hot feeling in his stomach. Was he really that desperate? That was pathetic and a little disturbing.

"What a wonderful way to end the evening!" Carla gushed when the two warring parties finally broke apart. Her tone made it sound like an adorable peck and not the obscene battle for dominance that it was. "Mikasa would you mind helping the boys with their bags, I'm afraid Grisha is quite useless after a glass of wine." She drained her wine glass and stood, all business. Armin almost wanted to laugh. The first family dinner was over and Eren had hardly even managed to make his parents squirm. This was going to be an interesting week, but for now all he had to worry about was reacquainting himself with his old bed, curling up with a book, and forgetting about this whole mess that he had allowed Eren to get them in.

 

* * *

 

 

Jean's mouth still tasted like Eren. Which was to say it tasted like lasagna, but he really preferred the taste of lasagna in his mouth not Eren's. Relief loosened the knot in his shoulders as Carla began going through the motions of sending them to bed. Today had been a mind fuck, and not in the fun, experimental film sort of way. All he wanted was to curl up on a couch somewhere and pass the fuck out. He could berate himself for going on vacation with someone he met off Craigslist later.

"Carla?" He asked, "Where can I find some blankets?"

She made a motherly sort of clucking noise and patted his cheek. "Oh honey, you don't think we're going to make you sleep on the couch, do you? Grisha and I have no illusions about what you boys get up to. We just ask that you keep it down so us old folk can get some sleep." She winked.

Jean felt panic rising in his throat. _I'm not going to have to share a bed with that lunatic, am I?_

"You and Eren can take the guest room in the attic."

Eren was crossing the dining room toward the living room and judging by the sudden convulsion of his face he hated the idea as much as Jean did.

"Thanks, Mom!" he said anyway and he reached around her to latch onto Jean's sleeve. "C'mon _boyfriend_ I'll show you the attic."

Eren dragged him into the foyer and up a flight of stairs. He didn't let go of Jean's sleeve until they reached a landing with three doors and a wooden ladder in the corner that led to a hatch in the ceiling. Jean's backpack and Eren's duffel were piled next to the ladder.

"You are not sleeping in a bed with me," Eren hissed. "Take the guest room by yourself."

"Fine," Jean shot back, irritated by Eren's snotty expression, "I don't want to sleep with your sorry ass anyway."

Eren's hand fisted in the front of Jean's sweater and he jerked him forward, so their noses were nearly touching. "Remember that you want this ass. You love this ass. This ass is your mission. It's the reason you're here."

Jean shook him off, his lip curling in disgust. He yanked his duffel bag off the top of the pile and headed for the ladder.

"My ass is your ticket to free rhubarb pie," Eren shouted after him.

"Gay much?" Jean spat.

"You're gay!" Eren shot back.

Jean was practically at the top of the ladder but he looked down at Eren to hiss, "I don't even want your fucking ass pie!" Then he threw open the hatch and pulled himself into the attic.

The attic wasn't empty.

There was a squawk and Jean looked up to see Armin curled on the bed clutching a book to his chest.

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry," Jean stammered, realizing that Armin was wearing only a pair of black briefs and a faded lion king t-shirt. He looked between the bed with Armin on it and the closed trap door with Eren on the other side. "Eren told me to sleep up here. Carla said it's the guest room?"

"Oh," Armin tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, and continued watching Jean with his wide, unnerving blue eyes. "It is when I'm not home—the bed's bigger than Eren's. I hadn't realized Carla wanted us to switch."

"I can—sleep on the couch?" He wasn't sure how he'd get away with it, but he wasn't going to impose on the one person in this house who didn't drive him crazy.

Armin sighed and his shoulders relaxed. "Don't be ridiculous. That would blow your cover and Eren would be furious."

"Yeah, yeah," Jean nodded slightly relieved. "Just toss me an extra blanket and I can camp out over here."

Armin chewed his lip thoughtfully before shaking his head, the hair he'd previously tucked behind his ear falling back into his face. "No that's ridiculous. We're both adults, be can share a bed without it being weird."

He sounded like his mind was made up, and when he patted the unoccupied side of the bed it was with a confident half smile.

"Yeah. Sure. Okay," Jean still felt off balance, but he hesitantly returned Armin's smile—he wasn't going to have to sleep in a room with Eren and he wasn't going to have to toss and turn on the floor all night. Things had worked out better than he had hoped.

He dropped his bag in a corner and crouched to grab his toothbrush and sleep pants. He pulled off his sweater and undershirt and dumped both on top of the bag and was about to undo his pants when he remembered that he didn't actually _know_  anyone in this house. He was used to nudity around his friends but what if Armin, with his pretty face and Carla's dream-of-the-fifties household, was scandalized? 

"I'm just gonna -" he gestured vaguely, studiously avoided eye contact, and noticed there weren't any additional doors in the cozy space. Where was the —

"Down the ladder, right at the bottom," Armin said, helpfully, and Jean practically threw himself down the ladder. 

* * *

 

_Objectively,_ _Jean is more attractive than the average human,_ Armin's brain supplied as he continued to stare dumbly at the place where Jean's surprisingly lean and aesthetically pleasing torso had disappeared. _I'm not being creepy, it's just a fact. And it's totally not a problem, I'm only going to be sharing a bed with the guy, and he's only my best friend's surprisingly hot fake boyfriend who apparently likes to sleep half nude. Meanwhile I'm wearing a Kiara t-shirt that Carla bought me in third grade._  

The pep talk wast working. At some point he should really consider how Eren's antics always wound up putting him in awkward positions, but then there was the familiar creak of someone climbing the ladder, so Armin quickly tossed his book onto the bedside table and retreated under the heavy quilt.

Jean emerged from the hatch, jeans swapped for a pair of soft gray sweatpants and _still no shirt_ , and closed it behind himself. His expression was vaguely perturbed.

"I think Carla just winked at me."

"Yeah, she does that."

Jean let out a disbelieving little laugh and stretched, his bare torso making all sorts of inviting lines that Armin would be interested in running his fingers along. Jean's sweats slipped down his hip bones and Armin forced himself to flop back onto his pillow. The exposed beams above him were mercifully uninteresting.

"Dude, are you wearing a Kiara shirt?"

"You're familiar with Lion King Two?" He felt the mattress dip and waited until he felt the quilt tugged in Jean's direction before rolling onto his side.

"It's one of the few underrated Disney sequels."

Armin hummed approvingly. Jean was pleasant surprise after pleasant surprise. "Carla bought them for us after the movie came out. I had a Kovu shirt originally, but Mikasa forced me to switch with her. Well, she asked and I was too scared of her at the time to say no."

Jean's eyebrow's arched upward. "This family is kind of crazy."

Armin would have chuckled fondly if he wasn't concerned that Jean would think he was laughing at him. The Jaeger family—and all the add-on's included in that group—were an eccentric hot mess and that was part of why Armin loved them so dearly. Instead he asked, "How are you holding up?"

Jean exhaled a loud breath and scrubbed a hand over the shaggy front part of his hair. "It's been a lot. I honestly didn't know what I was signing myself up for."

"That's understandable. Honestly, I've been an honorary part of the Jaeger family for so long that it seems totally normal to me. They pretty much always operate on this level."

"How did you get sucked into all of this?"

They were both laying on their sides now. A respectful three feet between them. Soft warm light shone from the lamp on Jean's side of the bed, filling the corners of the room, but leaving the peaked ceiling above the rafters shadowy. Armin had spent so many nights in this room, many of them with Eren and Mikasa piled in bed with him, that the room was nearly as much his as it was the Jaeger's. The sturdy old desk under the one round window was Grisha's, but the books on the bookshelf were all Armin's. The rug was one Carla had fallen in love with at a yard sale, but the quilt on the bed was Armin's pick. Laying here, even with a relative stranger, made him feel nostalgic. And a little self conscious, a little protective.

"I met Eren in kindergarten," Armin started, still facing Jean but carefully looking away. "My parents had died a few months before the school year started and it kind of screwed up my social development. I didn't have friends and I didn't know how to make friends."

In his periphery, he saw Jean's face go through the stages of surprise and sympathy that people always went through when he casually mentioned that he was orphaned young, but he was glad Jean didn't interrupt him. It was a very old wound and the faded scar didn't warrant comment.

"One day I was reading in a corner at play-time and this kid comes up to me and asks if I want to play house with him. There were these three girls that always hogged the house play set in the corner. He explained to me that when he asked to have a turn they laughed at him because apparently 'you can't play house without a mommy and a daddy.' It took me a minute to realize that he was asking me to play because he thought I was a girl."

"So he wanted you to be his wife?" Jean asked, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes.

"I guess. We didn't really think like that as kids. He thought I was a pretty girl, so obviously I had a shot at getting a turn at the play set. And even when I corrected him he rolled with, though I still was going to play the mom. The concept of two dads was a little beyond us at the time," he added dryly.

"And Carla and Grisha know this story?" Jean asked.

"Of course. They love that story."

Jean blinked at him, "So Eren pretend married a boy in kindergarten but he thought that bringing home a 'boyfriend' would shock his parents?"

Armin considered that, "Well, in retrospect maybe it shouldn't be shocking. But kids love playing with gender roles so it wasn't really conclusive evidence, and he only liked and dated girls in high school and college—well, he does have this weird thing going on with his male sculpture professor, but they're not actually dating or hooking up as far as I know. It's more of a—"

Jean groaned, "I don't even want to know."

Armin left off the tangent with an amused laugh and returned to him original story, eager to get to the good part, "We managed to get the play set from the girls in the end. The girls weren't going to give us a turn, but I wasn't about to let go of my first friend so easily. So, I told the girls that there was a new rule, that there was a time limit on the play set. I sat there and timed them and then Eren and I could have our turn. The thing was, no one else could read time, so I would give them five minutes and Eren and I fifteen."

"You staged your first coup in kindergarten." Armin liked that Jean sounded impressed.

"Of course I did. And of course the girls figured out I was playing them after a few days and told the teacher, but she couldn't really get upset that I was forcing them to share, so she set up a real time limit system. It worked out."

"So you've been encouraging Eren's crazy since kindergarten."

"I prefer to call it 'saving him from himself,' but essentially, yes. Mikasa came along when we were nine and she took over most of that job. The Jaegers have always been like family. When my grandfather died when I was eighteen I came to live with them—in this room actually—"

He noticed the glassy look in Jean's eyes and realized that reminiscing had turned into rambling. Armin chewed the inside of his lip to shut himself up. The poor guy had spent all day being traumatized by Eren, and then Armin had the nerve to chew his ear off in his only moment of quiet. He took a deep breath and asked politely, "So what's your story? Do you have any siblings as crazy as Eren?"

Jean's eyes focused again. "I have six siblings, but thankfully none as crazy as that bastard."

"Huh," Armin sized him up, trying to fit this this new information into his impression of Jean.

"What?"

"Honestly? I pegged you as an only-child."

Jean shrugged but there was an edge to his voice when he spoke. "I was, but both my parents remarried. Kids moved in, I moved out."

Here was a topic that Armin was pretty sure would land them in territory where neither of them wanted to be. Armin reached desperately for another topic, something that would clear the air before they had to roll over and share a bed. 

"You said something about hair stylist roommates?"

"Connie and Sasha," a genuine smile touched Jean's eyes and Armin mentally released a relieved sigh, "They're nuts, but like, a different type of nuts than Eren."

"Are they who we have to blame for that goatee?"

"That was all Connie. It took Sasha a week before she snapped and shaved it off. She did my undercut too."

Asking about his roommates, it seemed, was the right subject to get Jean talking. Armin settled into his pillow and listened in amusement as Jean rambled about meeting his friends in college, stories of undergrad, living together. He made appropriate, sleepy noises - amusement, shock - when the stories called for it, but soon his eyelids were drooping.

_Jean's not so bad_ , he though with his last seconds of consciousness. And then,  _I hope he turns off the light before he falls asleep._

 

 

 


	3. Day 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to the mall provides Eren with an embarrassingly public venue to flaunt his "relationship."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is taking longer to edit and post than I was expecting. Hope y'all don't mind reading about Christmas in January :P
> 
> UPDATE: I just fixed the spacing on all three chapters so it should now be easier to read on mobile!

Armin had forgotten how comfortable his bed at the Jaeger's was; the pillows were lumpy but cloud-like, the mattress was a dream, and the pile of flannel sheets and old quilts kept him cozy and toasty. Even his notoriously chilly feet were warm. Still half asleep, he wiggled his toes to fully luxuriate in the moment and realized that his feet were pressed against something solid—as was his chest. What's more, his arm was thrown over a warm lump that was made of more than just blankets. All at once, he remembered he wasn't alone in his childhood bed, and his eyes flew open. 

He was spooning Jean. His chest was pressed against Jean's naked back, his knees were pressed into the back of Jean's thighs. He was cuddling with a man he hardly knew, a man who was fake dating his best friend. _Fuck._

Armin held his breath and monitored Jean's slow, even breathing. If Jean was still asleep the situation was salvageable; he could just lift his arm and scoot back a few inches without waking Jean up...

"Rise and SHINE!" Carla's voice shattered the cloistered quiet of the attic. There was the distinctive creek of someone mounting the wooden ladder that led to the hatch.

Armin bolted upright, Jean doing the same next to him. They blinked at each other in groggy horror.

Embarrassment trickled into Armin's tired, startled brain.

_Oh God, had Jean already been awake?_  he thought, a little hysterically.  _How else could he have sprung up so quickly? Nice going Artlet, way to make an already awkward situation worse._

He fought against the flush in his cheeks; right now they had a bigger problem. If Carla made it up the ladder and saw that it was Armin sharing a bed with Jean, their cover would be blown, Eren's (admittedly shoddy) plan would be ruined within twenty-four hours, Eren would be furious, and—well, it was better that Carla never found out that Eren brought a stranger into their home for Christmas just to mess with her.

Armin and Jean were still staring dumbfounded at each other. They needed to _do something_. 

"Say something," Armin hissed, pulling his wits together. "Tell her not to come up."

"One minute, Carla!" Jean called, eyes wide. The creaking on the ladder didn't stop, and Armin flapped his hands at Jean in a _go on_  gesture.

"We're up. We're just—changing! We'll meet you down stairs!" Jean's voice broke, jumping up nearly an octave as he forced out the lie. The creaking stopped.

"Oh, boys," Carla's tittered, sounding like she must have been an inch from opening the hatch. "Don't take too long. Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes!"

They sat frozen, afraid to make a noise as they listened to the ladder creak as Carla descended. Finally, there was the sound of muffled footsteps on the stairs and they relaxed. Armin wanted to tease Jean about how the guilty crack in his voice made it sound like he and Eren were fooling around, but before he could so much as open his mouth there was the sound of someone coming up the ladder at a much more rapid pace. Armin's heart leapt into his throat, he and Jean shared another desperate look, but before they could move the hatch flew open and a sleep tousled, pajama clad Eren threw himself onto Armin's floor.

" _Mayday, mayday_! I have gathered intel that my mother is going to the _mall_!" Eren did a disastrous somersault and bounced to his feet at the foot of the bed. He didn't even bat an eye at Armin and Jean sitting next to each other in bed or Jean's bare, toned chest which was, in Armin's opinion, it's own kind of crime.

"Why should I give a fuck if your mom's going shopping?" Jean grumbled, running a hand through his already sleep mussed hair. Armin's heart was still beating wildly and his limbs were heavy as the adrenaline left them.

"Because we're going with her," Eren said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh joy."

"I thought you were unofficially banned from the mall after the incident with the mall cop at Claire's," Armin reminded him pointedly.

"NOBODY TOLD ME THAT WASN'T A REAL PINATA," Eren shouted. Armin already had a headache. It was 9am on the second day of his vacation, and he already had a headache.

"Anyway... Mom is going to drop off some donations she collected for Saint Maria's Orphanage, and you know that means all of her stuffy Assistance League friends will be there. Wouldn't it be just swell if her embarrassing homo son was there to make everyone super uncomfortable?"

Armin could feel Eren's overenthusiastic smile actively draining energy from him. Would he, he wondered, have any breath left if he pointed out every offensive thing Eren said in a day?

Jean seemed equally unprepared for Eren's energy; he groaned, "It didn't seem like it really worked yesterday. Your parents actually seem pretty supportive, and I think Carla kinda likes me."

Eren rolled his eyes with a huff, like they were the ones being dense.

"That's why we have to step it up! I'm talking literal fuck-tons of PDA. I'm talking horny teenagers on a park bench PDA."

"You realize that means we have to touch..."

"Yes, Jean-athan. This is for a greater cause. Anyways we kissed yesterday and it was only the fourth most unpleasant thing I've ever done."

"Thanks, sweetheart," Jean's sarcasm was dry enough to burn, "but I'm pretty sure if we keep ravishing each other, someone is going to lose a nose."

"Pet names!" Eren made finger guns at Jean, acknowledging only the least important part of Jean's statement. "That's perfect! Think of more!" He skipped back to the still-open hatch and dropped down onto the ladder, his head popping back over the lip of the hatch to add an enthusiastic, "Sugarbuns!"

When he was finally gone, Armin collapsed back onto his pillows, winded. Dealing with Eren first thing in the morning was a challenge, even after years of experience. He was surprised Jean was holding up. He glanced sideways at the other man and noticed how his bed-fluffed hair caught the light pouring in from the window and glowed like a halo. Armin remembered with an awkward wince that he still needed to apologize for shamelessly clinging to him in his sleep.

"Hey," he said softly, and when Jean looked at him the light caught the green flecks scattered through the soft brown of his eyes. "Sorry about cuddling with—"

"It's cool," Jean shrugged and threw the quilt off his legs, "I have a horrible feeling that will be the least uncomfortable part of my day."

Armin blinked at Jean as he sauntered across the room to kneel by his backpack, seemingly as unfazed by their awkward sleep situation as his words suggested. A warm, pleased feeling took root in Armin's chest—it was just relief, he rationalized. He was relieved that he hadn't made Jean uncomfortable and made their already less than ideal rooming situation even more unfortunate. The feeling was definitely not satisfaction at having a guy with such nicely shaped arms and defined hip bones imply that cuddling with him was going to be one of the better parts of his day—that would be silly.

 

* * *

 

Carla was over the moon that her "little Christmas angels" wanted to accompany her to the mall. On the drive over, Armin was reminded that Eren's love of belting loudly to the radio was inherited. Carla's rendition of Hark the Herald Sings was so heartfelt that Armin couldn't help but smile and hum along—also wince, a little, at the high notes. 

From the moment they stepped out of the car Eren was plunging full steam ahead with his plan. "Race you to the front doors, sugar lumps!" he shouted, swatting Jean on the butt and sprinting across the parking lot.

"Wait up, _sweet cakes!_ " Jean dutifully chased after him. The look in his eyes could be mistaken for playful, maybe, if you didn't have the proper context to tell it was vengeful.

The day was sunny for mid-December and any ice that may have once covered the asphalt had receded to the curbs and medians. Armin stayed behind to walk along side Carla and help her carry bags full of beautifully wrapped presents. They watched as Jean caught up and slapped Eren's ass harder than was probably necessary. Eren whirled around, pulling Jean by the hair and planting a sloppy kiss on his cheek. Jean pulled away with a grimace and wiped the side of his face with the sleeve of his Christmas sweater. "Oh come on you know you liked it!" Eren yelled, loud enough to carry all the way back to Armin and Carla.

Armin sighed. Carla chuckled next to him. "I would find them so sweet if they had any sense of personal safe—EREN GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET THERE'S A CAR COMING!"

Eren and Jean scrambled onto the curb.

"I had hoped that when Eren found someone, they would keep him out of trouble."

Armin hummed noncommittally. He was more interested in assessing how Carla was reacting to Eren's attempts at PDA than commenting on who would be keeping Eren out of trouble for the foreseeable future (Answer: Armin and Mikasa). Surprisingly, Carla didn't seem fazed in the slightest by all the ass-slapping. Eren and Jean would have to step up their game—Armin shuddered internally at what that could possibly entail.

"So, when are we going to find you a partner?" She asked Armin out of the blue, wrapping one heavily laden arm around his shoulders to squeeze. At one point, when Mikasa and Eren were going through their growth spurts, Armin had been embarrassed that he barely passed Carla's chin. Now, though, he found the feeling of being tucked under her arm warm and comforting. _Partner, huh?_ She never failed to surprise him.

"I'm okay," he said gently, because what else was there to say? "School is a lot of work, and I've got more than enough to deal with with Eren. I don't have time for a relationship, and no one's caught my eye."

Thomas and the half dozen other romantic entanglements he'd had since moving away to college didn't warrant mentioning. Any guy he would tell Carla about—any guy he would _introduce_  Carla to—would have to be special, someone he planned to keep around.

Carla  _hmmed_  at him, her smile unwaveringly warm, "Well, whenever you find a special someone we have more than enough space on our mantle for another Christmas stocking."

Armin shifted the bags of gifts he was carrying, he would never cease to be stunned by the generosity Carla showed him. He managed a stuttered, "Thanks, Carla," and they continued across the parking lot.

They entered the mall and Carla guided them through the throngs of bag-laden shoppers and whining children to the Shingashina Assistance League donation table. Every year the SAL ("a group of women warriors dedicated to making their community a more cheerful place"—Carla's words) set up a booth at the Shingashina mall where they handed out wish lists written by the children at St. Maria orphanage and collected the gifts that people in the community bought for the children. Carla had already fulfilled her volunteer hours for the program, but she had a few gifts left to drop off.

As they approached the booth, an middle-aged woman caught sight of them, her Christmas tree earings jingling as she waved enthusiastically. "Carla, I didn't know you were coming today!"

The two other women tending the booth, one in a turtle neck printed with tiny reindeer, the other in a bulky blue sweater with a large gold menorah knit on the front, turned around with matching 1000 watt smiles and exclaimed their own greetings. The amount of pure maternal energy coming from such a concentrated area was almost staggering.

"I can't stay today girls," Carla beamed right back. "I'm just dropping off some goodies!"

"And don't tell me who this handsome young man is!" The woman with the earrings snared Eren with a dimpled grin.

Carla practically swelled with pride as she turned to smile at her brood. "Eren and Armin have come home for the holidays!" This was followed by a chorus of  _ah's_  and _oh how lovely's_.

The grin on Eren's face was growing progressively more smug, and Armin quietly slipped to Carla's other side, wanting to be as far as possible from whatever embarrassing and inevitably tactless idea Eren was brewing.

Before Carla could continue, the woman in the reindeer turtleneck leaned toward her conspiratorially, "You remember my daughter, Erica? she's home for the holidays as well, and I'm sure she and Eren would have _such_ a good time together."

"Actually—" Carla began. 

"I'm into dudes now," Eren announced at twice the necessary volume.

The women blinked at Eren. Armin started counting down, timing how long the uncomfortable silence would last before someone awkwardly changed the subject. The woman in the menorah sweater broke the silence first, "Well, isn't that sweet."

Armin peered around Carla to study the look of determination on Eren's face.

"This is my boyfriend. We're like, super gay. Like, _homosexual_." He wrapped his arms around Jean's waist, pulling Jean in front of him and lifting on his toes so he could prop his chin on Jean's shoulder. Jean smiled, a little chagrined, but turned his head to give Eren a quick kiss on the cheek.

The women tittered, their smiles returning to their previous voltage.

"Yes, we gathered that," the woman in the turtleneck said, "I didn't mean to assume anything. You two are so sweet, I'm sure Erica would love to meet both of you."

_Well, this is a pleasant surprise._ Armin thought. _Looks like Shingashina isn't quite as behind the times as I'd assumed._

Eren's jaw was set though; he wasn't going to settle until someone was made uncomfortable (someone other than Armin). "We met online. He's like _way_ older than me." Jean just smiled good naturedly  seemingly unaware that Eren's hand was creeping steadily in the direction of Jean's waist band. "Isn't that right, Daddy?" he punctuated the simpering question by shoving his whole hand down the front of Jean's pants.

Jean jumped, eyes nearly bulging out of his head.

Amazingly, the four women tittered indulgently as if Eren had just told an unfunny joke that they were nonetheless charmed he had told. The woman with the Christmas tree earrings even pressed her hand to her heart and chuckled, "Oh, dear. What I wouldn't give to be twenty again."

Carla shooed Eren away with an eye roll that was for the benefit of her Assistance League friends and evoked another peel of laughter. "Alright, enough boys. Why don't you find somewhere to sit while I finish up here?"

A wide grin plastered on his face, Eren tugged Jean away by the hand, "Come on, sweet-ums!"

Armin followed them. From behind he heard one of the women launch into a cheerful anecdote, "I remember when my daughter Jenny was that age, we couldn't turn a corner in our house without finding them kissing..."

_This is_ not _working,_  Armin thought. 

"This is working," Eren announced when they were out of earshot, probably more for his own benefit than Armin or Jean's. "This is totally working." 

"I'm not sure—"

"Shut up, loser, and sit down," he shoved Jean down onto a wooden bench across the short promenade from the Assistance League stall. Around them the bustle of last minute Christmas shopping flowed, children screaming in anger or excitement, parents shouting at one another or pointedly not talking, mall speakers blasting trite tunes. It all exhausted Armin, but he knew Carla lived for this.

Armin sat down on Jean's other side, looking around at all that had changed about the mall since he had last visited.

"You know that new book store just opened upstairs, maybe we could check it out while Carla—"

There was a sudden flurry of motion on the bench next to him. Eren, now straddling Jean's lap, had grabbed Jean by the neck and was smashing their faces together. Armin sighed in annoyance as Jean fought for dominance, grabbing Eren by the hair and joining in the charade with what seemed like an unnecessary amount of tongue. Eren moaned theatrically.

It was like bad porn.

_How do I get myself into these situations?_ He wondered, despairingly. And then, _Eren's acting is terrible, does anyone actually believe he's into Jean with the suspicious amount of space he's keeping between their bodies despite being in his lap and sucking his face? Now, if I were in his position I would_ —

But no. He was shutting that train of thought down _right now_. He wasn't going to think about how _he_  would make out with his best friend's boyfriend, fake or not. Even if he did know how firm and warm Jean's chest would be, pressed against his. He should have just stayed home with Mikasa, even if all she had done since coming home was go for a 10 mile run and furiously text some college friend. They hadn't even needed him to come to the mall with them, he was only there because he felt bad for the poor sap that had gotten wrapped up in Eren's lunatic scheme.

And, judging by the way Jean was violently and enthusiastically sucking on Eren's lip, he didn't need the help. Until Eren's hands wandered again and Jean yelped into his mouth.

_On second thought, maybe he does need me. Or at least a safe word. I should talk to him about that._

With a sigh Armin pulled out his cellphone and angled his body away from the horrific display. He was getting that same warm feeling in his stomach that he'd felt watching them mouth-fight under the mistletoe, and the last thing he needed to do was pop an uncomfortable my-best-friend's-kinda-hot-and-his-fake-boyfriend's-smokin boner.

Carla came to his rescue not long after, clearing her throat politely and announcing that she needed to take Eren to Macy's to get some nice new clothes. Armin and a winded looking Jean jumped at the change of pace; a department store seemed like a nice, spacious venue for Eren to wear himself out without attracting too much attention.

But in that supposition Armin had made one crucial error: he'd forgotten about dressing rooms.

The rest of the afternoon became a checklist of Eren's awful attempts at embarrassing PDA. First up, extremely loud, sexually suggestive flirting. 

Eren strolled through the isles of neatly hung men's clothing pulling out only the trashiest ripped jeans and muscle-tee combos that he could find.

"You should try on these jeans, _Pumpkin_. They'd make your ass look awesome!"

" _Sugarlumps_ , your man-cleavage would look so great in this v-neck."

"You have to try this sweater, _babe_. It'll make your 'ceps look so good that I'd let you bend me over that clothing rack."

"'Ceps?" Jean hissed, as Armin wondered if he could strangle Eren with one of the thin manly scarves he was looking at. Just a little strangling. Just enough to knock him out.

"Triceps, duh."

"I don't think anyone says that."

"Shut your whor— _scrumptious_ , little _butter cream_ mouth."

Eren's next attempt was even more cheek-searingly embarrassing, and, if possible, louder. 

By the time they reached the dressing room Eren had collected a small mountain of horrible, over priced clothing for Jean. Carla, who was humming along to the muzak rendition of "Oh, Holy Night" playing over the store's sound system, had a few choice items selected for Eren. She was in high spirits and Armin wondered if it was because she hadn't heard the worst of Eren's comments or if she had somehow missed the sexual implications. Or if she was just elated that _someone_  who wasn't Armin or Mikasa was willingly putting up with her offspring.

_If only you knew_ , Armin thought wryly. 

The dressing rooms were in adjacent hallways, men's to the left, women's to the right, with a sitting area in the middle. A harried looking attendant waved them in then shuffled off with an armful of rumpled button downs.

"Alright, Eren, it's time for you to try these on," Carla deposited her selections in Eren's arms.

"I'm only trying those on if Jean tries on what I picked out for him!"

"Okay, honey. You two hurry along. Armin will keep me company out here."

Eren flashed his teeth at them in a way Armin did not trust and hitched his arm around Jean's waist. For his part Jean seemed to be more devoted to the act than Armin had ever seen him. He mussed Eren's hair then dropped his arm around Eren's neck.

"Aren't they just precious," Carla gushed as they disappeared down the hallway.

"The sweetest," Armin said dryly.

It wasn't long before the noises began.

_Bang!_

"Ow!"

"Shhh!"

And then there was a loud squelching sound followed by a series of wet smacks.

"Jesus Christ," Armin buried his face in his hands. It literally sounded like someone slapping two fish together. He wasn't sure if Eren was going for sex noises or just sloppy make-out noises, but these were neither.  _Eren, have you ever made out with anyone? That's_ not _what it sounds like._

Carla giggled into her palm. "Oh, young love," she crooned. "I remember what that was like. Grisha and I had our share of kisses in dressing rooms!"

Armin wanted to sink into this chair and disappear. He did not want to think about Carla's rebellious, youthful experiences, and he definitely did not want to think about Grisha kissing anyone. He couldn't continue to sit with Carla any longer; that way lay unwanted TMI, horrifying admissions, and madness. 

"My, what a lovely scarf," he said, pointing vaguely at a rack of men's pants, and left before Carla could say anything more.

 

* * *

 

After what felt like an eternity, they headed for the food court. They acquired styrofoam boxes of Mongolian barbecue and found a relatively clean four person table. Noise bounced off the hard floors and the vaulted ceiling, filling the food court with a comfortable hubbub. Armin sank into his plastic seat with a sigh and dug into his food. Dealing with Eren's antics worked up an appetite.

Eren loved food more than he loved screwing with his mom, so while he devoured his stir fry they were given a momentary reprieve from second hand embarrassment.

"So," Carla twirled her chopsticks in a tangle of noodles and grinned at Jean across their small, enamel table, "how long have you two been together? I forget if you mentioned it before."

"Six months—" Jean said, as Eren said, "Three weeks—"

They glared at each other.

"What Eren means," Jean said meaningfully, "is that we've only really gone public with it in the past few weeks. But we started seeing each other a few months ago, we just wanted to keep it quiet."

"How sweet," Carla said without any indication that she had found their conflicting answers suspicious, "Did you do anything special for your six month anniversary? I hope you're not spoiling my baby." Her attention was fully locked on Jean, her eyes practically glowing as she set down her chopsticks and rested her chin on her palm. She had clearly been waiting for her son to have a significant other she could fawn over. It made Armin feel even worse that this was all fake. 

"Well, actually..."

Armin saw the wheels turning in Jean's mind and listened with interest, curious what he would come up with.

"There was this butterfly exhibit I had been wanting to see."

Eren choked on is noodles. "Gay," he muttered when his air way was clear.

Jean and Carla ignored him. 

A smile curled over Carla's lips, "Oh, I didn't know they had those in the winter."

Jean's eyes widened, clearly he hadn't considered the actual feasibility of having just gone on this date. The lack of planning that had gone into his whole ordeal was making Armin's strategic, little heart hurt.

"The tent was very well heated," he covered quickly, then barreled on. "It was beautiful, and afterward we went to Rainforest Cafe because my  _babycakes_  is a giant two year old."

Carla was swooning, her finger tips pressed to her smiling lips and her eyes dancing with delight. Jean was really selling it, and Carla was eating it up.

"Gayyyy," Eren mumbled.

"And then we rented Avatar."

"Dude, I fucking—"

"Hated that movie. I know babe, I did too."

A dark expression crossed Eren's face as Jean disparaged one of his favorite movies. Jean didn't notice, his gaze had gone a little glassy and when Carla exclaimed, "Oh, Jean, that sounds lovely!" he laughed awkwardly and quickly ducked his head to shove noodles in his mouth. Armin could see why Carla was so charmed, it was the perfect balance of romantic and stupidly cute. Clearly Jean could be a charmer when the person he was "dating" wasn't Eren. Yet another pleasant surprise.

 

* * *

 

Lunch had lulled Armin into a false sense of calm, and so when Eren mustered up another attempt at public humiliation he was caught horribly off guard. 

Carla had dragged Eren into a store lined with nice silk neckties and respectably masculine cuff links—she knew her son well enough to know that it was unlikely he would have thought to get Grisha an acceptable Christmas gift—so Armin had fallen back to check in with Jean without an audience.

"You know," he started casually, feigning interest in a display of watches in the store's front window, "if you don't want to kiss Eren, you can just tell him no. He's pushy and doesn't think about asking permission first, but he'll respect it if you tell him to stop."

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Jean shrugged. "Honestly, I don't mind. It's fun, and Marco—my last—" Jean coughed. "Well. It's been longer than I'd like, y'know?"

_Marco? His ex, maybe? Now that's interesting._ Armin turned back to the watches, formulating a way to continue the conversation without seemingly like he was prying, although he had every intention to pry, but Eren had already noticed their absence and was waving at Jean energetically from the middle of the store.

"Honey bunches of oats! You would look _so_ adorable gagging on this tie." An elderly woman considering pocket squares looked startled and a pair of gentlemen at the till grumbled about the 'youth of today'. Jean paled and hurried to join Eren before he could shout anything more explicit across the entire shop.

Armin wanted to sink through the floor. Or burn every shred of evidence connecting him to Eren. Instead he just sighed to himself and watched Eren and Jean from across the store, _Ah, well,_   _interrogating Jean will have to wait til later._

* * *

 

They managed to complete their mall day without being explicitly banned from returning, which was a small victory as far as Armin was concerned. Back at home and ready for some peace and quiet, he unearthed a battered paperback of _Pride and Prejudice_ and brought it downstairs to read in front of the fire. His hands remembered the soft ridges where the book's spine had been broken. He knew the book so well, he simply let it fall open were it would and picked up from where Elizabeth met the dashing but ultimately unsavory Willoughby.

Jean had volunteered to cook with Carla, probably out of some misplaced sense of obligation (seriously, he was doing enough free work as it was) or maybe because he was just a nice guy, and Eren had slunk off to his room where he was most likely making more questionable life decisions via Craigslist  Armin had the room to himself but he was still finding it difficult to focus on Elizabeth's plight. To be fair, he could recite entire scenes by heart so it didn't require his full attention, but more than that, he kept finding himself distracted by Jean's account of the date—that dreamy look he'd gotten toward the end made Armin curious. And then he'd dropped that name: Marco. Armin honestly hadn't put that much though into whether or not Jean liked men. The Craigslist ad had been ambiguous, and Jean's initial reluctance to kiss Eren was clearly about Eren's sparkling personality and not his gender identity. So Jean was most likely queer. It didn't change anything, so why couldn't Armin focus on Willoughby's charming assholishness?

"Armin," the couch dipped next to him and he jumped. Mikasa was perched on the edge of the cushion, fixing him with her usual uncanny stare. "I trust Shingashina Plaza is still standing."

Armin fiddled with the corner of the page he hadn't been reading. "Don't worry, Eren was too wrapped up with Jean to burn anything down."

"Jean," Mikasa said thoughtfully. "What do you think of him?"

Armin gazed into the fire. The small pile of logs on the grate crackled merrily, tongues of yellow flame licking up their sides. The occasional spark flitted upward with the smoke.

"He's cool I guess." He chewed his lip, watching as a previously unmarred end of a log started to smoke. 'Cool' was unfairly lukewarm, he actually quite liked Jean. "At first he seems like a run of the mill asshole, but he's just an emotionally prickly person. If you can get him to open up he's got hidden depths and he's actually quite enjoyable to be around."

Mikasa "hmphed" in response and Armin felt abruptly embarrassed. She was probably looking for a canned response, a 'is he going to hurt Eren or not' kind of answer, not a weird analysis of Jean's "hidden depths." Oh god, what type of asshole said people had _hidden depths_? Whatever type of asshole Armin Artlet was apparently. But Mikasa pressed her palms together, honestly considering his ramblings.

"Thank you, Armin," She finally said as she stood, pressed one palm briefly to his shoulder, then left the room as if that was all she came for.

Armin didn't give her abrupt departure much thought; he had resigned himself to the mysteries of Mikasa years ago. Instead, he found himself entranced by the fire. He watched a glowing log cave in, releasing a puff of sparks, and ran his fingers thoughtfully over the age-softened edges of his book. There was a strange tightening feeling in his chest, but he couldn't figure out what it meant or what had caused it, so he gave up thinking and continued to watch the flames.

 

* * *

 

That night Armin and Jean took turns showering. Once he was dressed, Armin settled into bed with his book to wait for Jean. Honestly, the book was a prop; no one would think they were being interrogated when their interrogator appeared more interested in perusing Jane Austen.

"So," he casually flipped a page as Jean climbed into bed, "how long were you and Marco together?"

Jean was silent for a moment, but Armin didn't look up. _Play it cool_ , Armin told himself, _he'll trust you more if you don't seem to eager_.  

"Four years," Jean finally answered. "I was the Mr. Bingley to his Jane." He reached over and tapped the top of Armin's book to underscore the reference.

Armin couldn't hold back the disbelieving laugh that bubbled out of his chest. So Jean was a Jane Austen fan as well? That was good to know, but he either had a very liberal interpretation of Mr. Bingley or a very flawed perception of himself.

Jean bristled, crossing his arms and sinking petulantly back into the pillows. It was so easy to put him on the defensive, no wonder Eren was constantly getting under his skin. "What?"

"You think you're the hapless, lovable suitor with no spine?" Jean opened his mouth to argue, but Armin continued, "You're much more of a Mr. Darcy."

Surprisingly, Jean's combative pout actually softened into an abashed smile. "No, no, you're right, I'm a proud asshole. But Marco was totally a Jane and it kind of threw off the symmetry if I was Darcy."

There was still so much fondness in his voice that Armin had to shut his book and turned to face him properly. The old brass framed bed was big enough that even with both of them sitting cross legged on top of the quilt it didn't feel like they were invading each other's space. Armin would not cop to enjoying digging around in people's lives, but he found Jean more interesting than the average person and he was curious about this Jane Bennet ex-boyfriend of his.

"So you broke up amicably?"

"Of course," the strain in his voice suggested that even if it was amicable it wasn't necessarily mutual, "I moved off to college and we tried to make it work for a semester, but then we decided it was like we'd gone back to just being best friends so we called it off. We're still close though. Usually we see each other around the holidays. This is the first year he's off doing whatever it is you social science types do and leaving me alone." 

_Ah, so Marco-Jane Bennet is the source of Jean's surprising anthropology knowledge._ Armin processed that, slotting all the relevant details into place. Then he paused, brow furrowing. "Wait, it's been five years since you broke up?"

"Only four! Ish..."

_No wonder he doesn't mind mouth-sparring with Eren,_ Armin thought. And then, because Jean was looking ruffled again, he explained, "I broke up with my last boyfriend four months ago and I thought _that_ was a dry spell."

"Oh..." the noise was both embarrassed and revelatory. Today was a day of gay reveals all around, it seemed. But Jean didn't follow that up with anything, just poked at a small ball of lint, pushing it across the sheet with his finger. When the silence threatened to get genuinely awkward Armin reached for another topic.

"So... you hated Avatar? Bad choice, it's practically Eren's favorite movie."

Jean looked up again, his face scrunched and nostrils flaring comically, "Ugh, _how_? It's just so _bad_ , and try watching it with an anthropologist—I swear Marco was ready to write his thesis on how terrible it was."

"Try _being_  an anthropologist and watching it," Armin groaned, delighted to finally find someone who espoused his exact opinions on the matter.

"It's like some weird space version of Pocahontas"

"And with ugly blue people."

"They totally underutilized Sigourney Weaver, which is practically a criminal offense."

"And they stole the name from Avatar the Last Airbender, which is the only _real_ Avatar"

Jean was getting animated now, "We should start a petition to never let David Cameron make another movie again." He pounded his fist against the mattress for emphasis.

"I miss the days of Alien and Titantic," Armin sighed.

"Leo, darling Leo," Jean sighed, clutching a hand to his heart theatrically. He caught Armin's eye, and they both laughed. It felt like a new laugh, like something that hadn't been there before was blossoming in the air between them. It felt, Armin realized, like he was really _meeting_  Jean for the first time; and realizing how much they got along.

The silence when their laughter petered out was calm, comfortable. Armin, realizing he had clutched a pillow to his chest at some point during their rant, leaned back against the headboard and tried to convince himself not to keep talking. They should go to bed, it was getting late and they'd already surpassed the requisite amount of polite conversation that would make sleeping in the same bed less awkward, but he was suddenly wide awake.

"So you're the only person who didn't get to DJ on the way here," Jean broke the silence, "What are you listening to these days?"

How could Armin suggest they sleep when Jean leaned back on his hands and asked about his impeccable musical taste like he actually wanted to know? Armin squeezed the pillow tighter.

"I'll tell you," he said, wicked smile on his face. "But you have to make sure you're delicate ego isn't damaged when my music taste is more refined than anyone you've ever met."

"Oh fuck you," Jean's nose wrinkled when he laughed. "Bless me with your miraculous knowledge."

Armin fell asleep at some point between arguing about Sia and the sound of Jean sleepily muttering "No, but seriously, _this album_ — _"_ , the beginning strands of Kesha playing from his phone speakers.

 

 

 


	4. Day 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's cookie day. You know what that means."  
> "Actually, I don't have a clue what that fucking means."

"Eren! Jean?" A trilling voice cut through the floor of the attic, and Armin awoke to the feeling of a luxuriously warm and shirtless chest jerking out of his arms. Shirtless. In this arms. He had been spooning Jean. _Again_.

"I hope you're not getting up to any funny business! I've got a special delivery for you!" The voice was, unsurprisingly, Carla's. Footsteps shuffled up the ladder, Carla clearly not waiting to make sure no 'funny business' was going on.

And here he was, her adoptive son in bed with her son's 'boyfriend'. And nowhere to hide.

"Get under the blankets," Jean hissed, looking rumpled but wide awake.

"What?!" Armin hissed back, "She'll think Eren's giving you a blow job!"

"I don't think Eren would mind."

"Yes, but--"

"Oh for fuck sake-" Armin couldn't even object before Jean was pushing his flat and rolling on top of him, his back to Armin's front, elbows propping his chest up to hide Armin's head. Armin found himself with a face full of the very soft skin between Jean's shoulder blades as the hatch creaked open. Now that his mind was catching up, he could admit this was a nice piece of quick-thinking on Jean's part; that didn't mean, however, that he wasn't going to slowly suffocate or die of embarrassment.

"Good morning! Good mor-ning!" Carla's singing echoed off the rafters as the scent of coffee and peppermint entered to room with her. "I brought your favorite, candy cane coffee!"

"Good morning, Carla!" Anyone who wasn't as perpetually cheerful as Carla would have questioned how hysterically jovial Jean sounded. "Eren's actually in the shower right now."

Armin struggled to keep his body totally still and not wheeze for breath. Jean was heavier than he looked and, more urgently, his butt was dangerously close to pressing into Armin's crotch. He focused on breathing through his nose and visualizing something innocent--sugar plums dancing and all that jazz.

"Not to worry, I'll leave his coffee here. There's one for you too!" There was the soft clink of coffee mugs against the wood floor. _She's almost gone,_  thought Armin. Maybe they really _would_ pull this off. "Breakfast is waiting for you. I'm off to go wake Armin!"

"No!" Jean jerked violently, the movement pressing his bony ass into Armin's diaphragm. He wheezed as silently as possible.

"Is something wrong, Jean?" There was a creak and then the footsteps on the ladder stopped. _No, no, no,_  thought Armin, _just go_.

"No... uh... Armin is... also in the shower..."

  
_Nice, very smooth._ Armin hoped Jean could see him rolling his eyes through the back of his head.  _How did a man who was so shitty at lying think it was a brilliant idea to pretend to be someone's boyfriend for an entire week?_  


Instead of coming back up the stairs or asking why her two college-aged sons might be showering together, Carla just tittered and continued her descent.

"Aw," she cooed fondly, "Some things never change!"

Her pleased chuckle lingered behind her as the hatch slammed shut. Desperate for air and the return of his dignity, Armin flailed his limbs, shunting Jean off of him. He curled on his side, gasping for air and definitely 100% avoiding eye contact with Jean. He'd had platonic, pretty boy butt near his crotch too many times in the past few days and he wasn't sure if wanted to die or return to believing in a benevolent god.

Maybe Jean just wouldn't notice the boner, or that Carla had let slip the little fact that--

"You and Eren shower together?" Jean asked. Armin was _not_  looking at him, but he could just imagine the raised eyebrow and the smug look on his stupid, handsome face.

"Shut up," It had been _years_ since high school.

 

* * *

 

 

Ten minutes later they were dressed in their holiday sweaters, fortified with candy cane coffee, and ready to face the day.

Armin's phone vibrated while Jean checked that the coast was clear. Armin pried it out of the back pocket of his skinny jeans, already cursing whoever felt like calling him at 9:00 am during winter break. He rolled his eyes at the name glowing on his screen and wedged the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he started down the ladder behind Jean.

"Eren?"

"Are you with Jean? Put him on speaker, we need a game plan for today."

"Aren't you in the house?"

Armin hadn't even reached the landing when Eren's door swung open. "Yeah," Eren said into the phone in his hand.

Armin hopped off the ladder two rungs from the ground and hung up the call. Jean was grumbling something about Eren, so Armin gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder--a sign of solidarity from one person weathering Eren's shenanigans to the other--and followed Eren into his bedroom.

Eren's room hadn't changed since senior year of high school. Complex Lego constructions and participation trophies lined his book shelves. Star Wars and Spider-Man posters clashed with the one poster of a scantily clad woman Carla had ever allowed him to keep: Jennifer Lopez circa 1999. His sheets were still Batman themed and he'd even returned to tossing his unwashed clothes in a pile by the door.

Eren closed the door behind them, crossed his arms over his chest, and studied them as if they were trusted generals he'd just ushered into the war room.

"For some unknown reason my brilliant plan to overwhelm my mother with how disgustingly in love we are isn't working."

Jean scoffed, clearly more interested in poking around Eren's things than contributing to the conversation. He prodded dangerously at the Lego Millennium Falcon that Armin had helped Eren assemble in eighth grade. "I mean, she put up with your disgusting face for 20 years, she has to have a pretty high tolerance for gross."

"Shut up, asswipe. I am the apple of her eye. Stop derailing this very important stratigicalistic meeting!" He sucked in a calming breath, smoothing down the front of his sweater as if Jean's mere presence had rumpled it, then announced, "It's cookie day. You know what that means."

"Actually, I don't have a clue what that fucking means."

Eren huffed and sent a look in Armin's direction that translated roughly to 'I _can not_ with this idiot', so Armin took it upon himself to explain.

"Carla bakes approximately a thousand Christmas cookies a year." He swatted Jean's hand away from another one of Eren's fragile Lego masterpieces. "All types, snickerdoodle, sugar, chocolate chip... it takes all day and we all help. It's fun."

He shrugged, aware of how underwhelming it sounded. Explaining traditions always felt weird. He could never think of a logical justification for why he enjoyed them so much.

"Cookie day." Eren punctuated as if he had supplied the definition. "A.k.a, we're not leaving the house. A.k.a, we need a new plan to horrify Carla. A.k.a, we need a fresh strategy. I'm ready for ideas." He planted his hands on his hips and looked between them expectantly.

"None of your strategies have worked so far." Jean gave up on poking at Eren's belongings to lean against the dresser. "Maybe your mom just isn't a homophobe like you think."

"Honestly, I couldn't give a flying fuck. That doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to help me fuck with her."

Jean was getting irritated now, his upper lip curling into a sneer as he spoke, "I don't think another idiotic strategy is going to help."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Doubty McDoubterpants. Your negativity isn't appreciated."

The two of them glared at each other. How they had fooled anyone into thinking they genuinely enjoyed each other's company was a mystery to Armin--but maybe that was exactly why this plan could work.

"Actually, Jean may be on to something."

Eren sucked in a dramatic breath, pressing his palm over his heart, "Et tu, Brute?"

"Think about it. Carla doesn't care if you're gay and she really seems to like Jean."

"I am surrounded by traitors!"

" _I think,_ " Armin pressed, "all Carla wants is for you to be happy and supported. Since you guys really hate each other, maybe if you show her that she'll stop approving of your relationship."

The betrayal on Eren's face melted into a grin, one that was brightening to a worrying voltage. "That is a surprisingly good idea, Armin! There's a reason you're the brains to my beauty."

"You mean to your fugly," Jean mumbled with all the sophistication of a third grader. Luckily Eren didn't hear.

It was thus decided that Jean and Eren would go  _au natural_ , horrifying Carla and Grisha with their train wreck of a relationship. Their new plan agreed, upon they trooped downstairs to put words into horrible, cringe-worthy action.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa, when she awoke well before sunrise on Cookie Day, had to admit she was rattled. Her phone had been blowing up since she arrived home, which was a rarity in and of itself. Sure, Ymir was always sending her snapchats of what she was doing, who she was pissing off, what classes she was sleeping through. But Mikasa, being busy with training and rugby practice and all the other responsibilities of being a team captain and a full-time student, didn't have time to make a lot of other friends who wanted to text her. But now _that name_ kept showing up on her phone, almost constantly since they had said goodbye to each other at the start of break.

 

**From: Oh Captain, My Co-Captain**

_whats ur fav christmas movie_

 

**From: Oh Captain My Captain**

_look bert tried to decorate_

 

**From: Oh Captain My Captain**

_on the third day of christmas ur co-capt got whiskey drunk_

_bert wants to take my phone away_

_fuckmm_

 

**From: Oh Captain My Captain**

_Ymirs gotta stop having a hot girlfriend. unfair._

**From: Oh Captain My Captain**

_did reiner send you a dick pic im so sorry_

_im kicking his ass right now_

 

It was weird. Nice. But weird. A nice weird. Weirdly nice?

Whatever it was, it was draining her mental energy. She knew she was glued to her phone in a way she had never been, and her family was beginning to notice. But this--what, relationship? Correspondence? Friendship?--was something new and precious to her. She wasn't exactly sure what she wanted, but she didn't want to ruin it with a carelessly flippant or over-emotional response to any of the texts. So she stayed glued to her phone, agonizing over every text she sent back and trying to ignore the flutters in her stomach.

Eren, at least, seemed totally absorbed with his new beau. This was something else Mikasa needed to get to the bottom of, something she knew in past years would have sent her absolutely ballistic, but it was hard to focus with her phone burning a hole in her pocket all the time.

She had her alarm set for 6:45, as she always did, but what had woken her was a text from Ymir at 6:40. If Ymir was still up and texting her, it was because she hadn't gone to sleep yet.

 

**From: Ymir**

_capt it's me_

_ur fairy godmother_

_get it?_

_fairy_

_godmother_

_gay_

_godmother_

_srry whiskey_

 

Which explained the rambling. 

 

**From: Mikasa**

_Go to sleep, Ymir._

_That's an order from your Capt._

 

**From: Ymir**

_hot_

_but srrsly as ur gay mom u gotta tell me shit_

_u still texting w annie?_

_u got it hard for her grrl_

_go get her_

 

Mikasa stared down at the phone, trying to ignore the notification icon. Three new snapchats from Annie Leonhardt  one text. It had been a joke, when Annie programed her number into Mikasa's phone as "Oh Captain, My Co-Captain" when they had been made co-captains of the women's rugby team, but now Mikasa couldn't stop fixating on those words. Oh captain, _my_  captain.

It was too early to deal with any of this.

 

**From: Mikasa**

  
_Go. To. Sleep_.

 

She went for her morning run, tacking on a couple miles to try to deaden her brain, and came back to shower before the boys even began to rustle in their rooms. The sky was just beginning to lighten when she made it down to the kitchen, but already there were enough cookies arrayed on trays and parchment paper sheets to feed a small army. She offered Carla a hand with the sugar cookie batter, but Carla shooed her away into the dining room where breakfast was already laid out for four people. Carla had likely eaten hours ago and Grisha was presumably at work, or hiding out in his basement office. He was easily overwhelmed by gratuitous amounts of baked goods.

Mikasa poured herself a mug of black coffee, helped herself to scrambled eggs, and waited for the boys to arrive. She was resolved to speak to Jean today. She had been so wrapped up in texting Annie and prying bits of serious advice out of Ymir that she had hardly put any effort into getting to know Eren's boyfriend. It was time to make up for her neglect.

The boys wandered into the dinning room in a pack, looking awake and well rested. She had strategically placed herself at the head of the table, so Armin took the chair to her right and Eren and Jean took two to her left. She let the clink of dishes and serving spoons die down before she began with a casual, "Good morning, Jean. Did you sleep well?"

Upon being addressed Jean jumped, splashing a drop of coffee onto his toast. "Yeah, I did. Thanks," he responded quickly.

Mikasa nodded and took a moment to sip her coffee. She wanted to question him about his intentions with her brother, but he seemed so flighty. She didn't want to spook him, for Eren's sake, so she started easy. "I am so glad you have decided to date Eren. If he were to stay single forever he would inevitably be my financial obligation. It is a big relief to me that that will no longer be the case. How are your finances, Jean?"

Jean's fork full of eggs stalled half way to his mouth and fell back to his plate. He gaped dumbly at her. She nodded, to show he should go on.

"I mean, right now I'm working three jobs to save up for grad school," he managed.

"And do you have any other financial obligations?"

"I have a goldfish?" Mikasa wasn't sure why that sounded like a question. "But like, my dad's bougie wife felt so guilty when he left my mom and I that she paid for my college, so I don't have, like, loans and stuff."

Mikasa sipped her coffee consideringly. He sounded responsible and hardworking, but the last bit about his father worried her. "So you have a history of infidelity in your family?" She asked.

"Mikasa!" Armin screeched. He could sound appalled all he wanted, but she needed to know what she should be on the look out for.

"What are you getting at?" Jean sounded mad now. _Quick temper_ _?_ She noted that as well.

She cleared her throat and set down her coffee so she could make herself perfectly clear. "Eren's heart is like a delicate butterfly. If you so much as crumple one pearlescent wing I will pin you, frame you, and hang you on my wall."

It was a good metaphor. She congratulated herself.

Down the table Jean looked stunned. "Well, that escalated quickly."

"God, Mikasa," Eren stabbed his fork into a sausage and brandished it in her direction, "I can fight my own battles. I am NOT a butterfly!"

"Oh Eren," Carla swept into the room, laden with a tray of fresh croissants like the domestic goddess she was. She was in her Christmas sweater again and the light flush of being hard at work over the baking gave her a warm, happy glow. "You are Momma's special butterfly!"

Mikasa nodded, glad for the backup.

Eren just shoved half the sausage in his mouth and sank sulkily into his chair. "I will punch all of you."

"Eren! Behave yourself!"

"MIKASA STARTED IT!"

"EREN JAEGER!"

Down the table, Armin put his head in his hands and Jean pretended his eggs were fascinating as Eren and Carla fell into one of their typically over-dramatic but ultimately harmless shouting matches.

  
_That went well,_  Mikasa thought. She had completed her sisterly duty in vetting Jean. He seemed an acceptable suitor, although she'd have to keep an eye out for signs that he'd inherited his father's wandering heart.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket as Carla aggressively served the fresh croissants. Ymir had sent her a snap of herself and her girlfriend, Christa, kissing under mistletoe. The caption read: "Don we now our gay apparel!" Mikasa snorted and opened up her text messaging to respond.

 

**From: Mikasa**

_How did you know? All I wanted for Christmas was a picture of you and your girlfriend necking._

 

As soon as she'd sent off the text her phone vibrated again. This time the snap was from Annie: a picture of Bert with snow crusted on his parka and his knit cap. The caption read: "He thought he could win."

Mikasa bit back a smile and lifted her phone to take a picture of Eren and Jean who, now that Carla had returned to her baking, were bickering over the obscene amount of sugar Eren put in his coffee. In their matching "Keep the Yuletide gay!" sweaters with their faces scrunched up angrily, they looked utterly ridiculous. "My mom out did herself this year," she wrote, and sent it off to Annie and Ymir.

A message from Ymir popped up.

 

**From: Ymir**

_ur just jelly this isnt you and tiny bitchface mackin under the mistletoe_

 

**From Ymir:**

_also necking?!?!? wtf are you 70?_

 

**From: Mikasa**

_So what if I am jealous?_

 

**From: Ymir**

_whoa there. are we getting serious Capt?_

 

Mikasa didn't respond. Giving Ymir too much information was often dangerous, there was no telling if she'd use it for good or evil. She was about to put her phone away when a blank snap came through with a caption from Annie: "hot. does ur sweater match?"

Mikasa felt heat slowly filling her cheeks. Selfies were something she avoided, but a picture of the sweater without her face in it would be practically just a picture of her boobs. Maybe she could take the sweater off and photograph it lying flat? But that might seem strange at the table. She could just describe it?

Sometimes she thought learning to pop dislocated joints back into their sockets was easier than figuring out how to flirt with Annie.

Taking a quick glance to make sure no one was paying attention to her at the table, she settled for burying her face in her scarf and snapping a selfie that showed the top half of her Christmas tree sweater.

It took Annie less than five seconds to respond: "cute."

Four letters shouldn't make Mikasa's heart beat like they did.

Down the table Eren was telling Jean that he needed to stop looking like he was phallating every sausage he put in his mouth and Armin was choking on his orange juice. Mikasa hardly noticed. Her head spinning with her increased pulse, she flipped back to her conversation with Ymir before she could think better of it.

 

**From: Mikasa**

_Maybe_

 

**From: Ymir**

_ugh gross im gonna catch your lesbianism. stop txting me._

 

**From: Mikasa**

_I think you're already a lost cause._

 

**From: Ymir**

_w/e ur still gross_

 

When breakfast was over they cleaned up the dishes and prepared for a sugar cookie decorating marathon. Every year Carla rolled out huge sheets of sugar cookie dough and pulled out a collection of her coveted Christmas themed cookie cutters so that "the kids" could decorate their own cookies. Until any of them had children of their own, they would remain "the kids" in the Jaeger household; as Mikasa picked out her favorite nutcracker cookie cutter, with Eren and Armin and even Jean in their matching sweaters, Michael Buble's caroling pumping through Carla's old boombox, she almost did feel like a child again.

Many years of temper tantrums had proven it was best if everyone got their own sheet of dough to do with as they pleased, so each of the Jaeger children plus Jean cleared a work space on the kitchen island to lay their tray out. Creativity wasn't Mikasa's strong suit, which Eren more than made up for, but cookies were her favorite holiday craft. It was relaxing to press the cookie cuter into the dough, lining solemn nutcrackers up next to each other, one right side up the next upside down and so on to fit as many on the sheet as possible. She didn't have to think about Annie, or Eren, or Jean, she could simply work with her hands.

"Eren, sweetheart, Don't you want your reindeer cookie cutter?"

"Pshhh, I'm free-handing it this year, Mom."

"Can I see?"

"Shut up, Jean. No, you cannot."

There was a scuffle as Eren picked up his tray and moved to the far counter, blocking their view of his work.

Jean made a face but Armin and Mikasa just shook their heads fondly. Eren was endearingly competitive about almost everything, including cookies.

Silence was a rarity in the Jaeger household, but it settled over the group as they began to work.

Efficient in everything, Mikasa finished her tray first. She cleaned up her dough scraps and handed the tray to Carla for baking. Then she walked up behind Armin and Jean to take a peek at their work. Armin had switched half way through his tray from holly to stars. Jean had picked a Christmas tree shape and was lining up his cookies in an alternating pattern the same way Mikasa had.

"Very economical use of space, Jean," She said, placing a friendly hand on his shoulder.

He jumped, accidentally pressing his cookie cutter in at an angle and decapitating one of his trees. "Thanks?"

Mikasa mentally patted herself on the back. Their friendship was clearly developing.

The cookie sheets had to go into the oven one at a time, so as they boys finished their sheets they each found a raised surface--the top of the fridge, on some cabinets, on the dining room table--to keep their waiting dough out of the way. Carla had to run out on a last-minute errand, so once all their mixing bowls were cleaned and frosting was prepped, they all made their way to the living room. For most of two hours, Armin and Jean chatted in chairs by the fire while Mikasa alternated between texting Ymir and watching Eren play GTA  Eren had insisted that no one see his cookie creations before he was done, so he put them in to bake last. The timer had just gone off as Carla swept into the house, her jingle bell bracelets announcing her progress through the foyer and into the kitchen.

"What did you make this year, honey?" Mikasa could hear her cooing from her seat on the couch, followed by the wet smack of Carla kissing Eren's cheek.

"Gross, mom," Eren said, "and it's the heavenly host!"

Armin and Jean perked up in interest. Curious, they followed Mikasa into the kitchen to take a look.

"That's lovely, honey," Carla was saying, whirling away from Eren to shelve the last of her groceries. "I'm going to take the frosting out of the fridge."

Mikasa, Armin, and Jean edged up to peer over Eren's shoulder. Two dozen sandy colored cookies lined Eren's tray in absolute disarray. The bulging, lopsided shapes weren't immediately distinguishable as angels. Honestly, they looked more like--

"Penises," Jean whispered, "They all look like penises."

"How would you know, cocksucker?" Eren spat.

Carla cleared her throat from across the room, "Boys. Language."

Mikasa tilted her head. They did look a _lot_ like penises. She pulled out her phone and took a picture to send in a group text to Annie and Ymir.

 

**From: Mikasa**

_My brother made angel cookies._

 

Their responses were nearly instantaneous.

 

**From: Annie**

_are those dicks?_

 

**From: Ymir**

_those are totes dicks_

 

**From: Mikasa**

_No, they're the heavenly host._

 

**From: Ymir**

_pls tell me u made nutcrackers_

 

Brows tugging together in confusion at Ymir's accurate guess, Mikasa took a picture of her own cookies and added it to the message.

 

**From: Annie**

_that's my girl_

 

If there was a joke in there, Mikasa had missed it. Were nutcrackers a lesbian thing? Or were her friends just strange? She supposed it could have something to do with cracking nuts as a euphemism for testicles... There were so many jokes and cultural touchstones that came with being gay. She had been too busy training and working for her sports scholarship throughout high school to think about dating _anyone_ , and for the past four months she had been scrambling to catch up on what Annie and Ymir had been learning since high school. Liking girls needed to come with it's own lexicon. Anyway, she liked Annie calling her 'her girl', so that was good.

Mikasa had to put her phone away for the next step. Frosting and technology didn't mix well. She neatly organized her area with red, white, and green tubs of frosting for the nutcracker's coats and little bags of black, white, and yellow for the finer details. Creativity might not be her forte, but accuracy was. No one could embellish a nutcracker's jacket like she could. 

Armin was next to her putting swirls and stripes across his stars and humming along with the _Beach Boys' Christmas Album_ which Carla had put on.

"Your frosting looks like a drunk three year old," Jean hissed at his boyfriend, jogging his elbow to throw off the admittedly already messy line Eren had been frosting.

"Oh yeah? I bet yours aren't any better, gay boy."

Jean and Eren had a strange sort of rapport. It didn't make sense to Mikasa how they could enjoy bickering so much, but then again Eren loved any chance to be loud and Jean seemed to give as good as he got. She looked up to see Eren's creations for herself. They really were abysmal. Abstract smears of blue and yellow and white with sugary sprinkles scattered liberally throughout. On top of, frankly, dick-shaped cookies.

"Holy shit! How did you do that?"

She followed Eren's gaze to the small collection of perfect Christmas trees in front of Jean. His green frosting was perfectly smooth and decked with perfect, tiny ornaments and a delicate multicolored star at the top of each one. They looked professional.

"I'm the son of a baker!" Jean defended as if Eren's comment had been an insult. "How are yours so bad? I thought you were an artist."

"I'm a _performance_ artist!"

Jean's face seemed to lengthen in disbelief, it's eyes going wide, "Oh, dear God, no."

Mikasa blinked at Jean's shocked expression. Shouldn't Eren's boyfriend know what he was studying? Partners were supposed to take an interest in that sort of thing. For example, she knew that Annie was a bio major with ambitions to become a conservationist, and they weren't even dating.

"You didn't know he threw away his future to pursue his dream of being the most unemployable type of artist?" she asked.

Jean couldn't stop gaping at Eren. "I mean I knew he was doing art. I heard about that sculpture class... what school allows you to major in fucking performance art!?"

"Mom," Eren twisted around to pout in Carla's direction, "Jean's not very supportive of my dreams!"

Carla looked up from where she was portioning out yet another sheet of thumb print cookies. "Well, honey," she said sweetly, "neither are we."

Eren's pout deepened and he looked pleadingly to Mikasa. He was searching for sympathy but all she could do was shrug. He knew that none of them supported his choice to throw away his half completed (and half paid for) degree at a good school to take art classes at a junior college with no career plan.

She was saved from having to voice her disapproval by her phone vibrating. She fished it out with a frosting-free hand.

 

**From: Annie**

_so i can pick you up on the 27th as long as the pass doesnt get snowed in_

 

Mikasa chewed her lip, her heart picking up it's irregular beat again. A few nights before they left for break, Annie had offered to pick her up on her road trip back to school. Mikasa agreed and canceled her plane ticket home. She still wasn't certain why Annie had offered, or why Annie had expressed interest in swinging by her house and even meeting the Jaegers, but practically everything Annie did confounded her.

They had met freshman year as new recruits on the rugby team. They had become conditioning buddies by default; no one else on the team trained as long or as hard as they did, at least not without trying to make annoying small talk. Still, they were hardly friends. It was Ymir who really broke the ice, finally convincing Mikasa to come to a non-rugby house party at the beginning of this past semester. The party had been about as fun as she expected: drinking beer against the wall in a room full of sweaty, drunk people she didn't know or care about. But then Ymir had found Christa, and Christa found Reiner and Bert, and Bert found Annie and the evening became marginally more entertaining after a few competitive rounds of beer pong  Annie decided to crash early, much to Ymir's annoyance, and Mikasa offered to walk home with her. When they reached Annie's house, Annie had kissed her. It was so surprising that Mikasa was left breathless, trying to figure out if she should have seen this coming, if there were signs she had missed. Annie invited her in and Mikasa went willingly.

They had hooked up a handful of times since then and even started spending time together outside of conditioning. Annie wasn't Mikasa's first, and she was pretty sure she wasn't even Annie's most recent conquest. But she didn't know where that left them. She was very careful about not reading too much into the text messages, and the selfies, and the Annie's road trip invitation--Annie had a reputation of sleeping with a new girl every week, so for all Mikasa knew they were just friends, maybe friends-with-benefits.

"Can I borrow some of that white frosting Mikasa?" Armin's voice pulled her out of her thoughts and she realized she had been staring blankly down at her phone.

"Oh. Yes," he passed the bag of frosting his direction and hastily shoved her phone in her pocket. "I'll be back," she muttered before jogging upstairs to find her laptop and thoroughly research the forecast for December 27th.

 

* * *

 

Cookies were always followed by crafts. Cutting out snowflakes and gluing together chains of red and green construction paper reminded Armin of being a kid. Back when his grandfather was still around, he'd come by to pick Armin at the end of the day and Armin would pout and try to wheedle 10-20-30 minutes longer out of him. Inevitably Grandpa would end up drinking eggnog with Grisha and making his own paper chain. They wouldn't leave until Armin and Eren had practically fallen asleep in a pile of paper scraps.

But holiday crafts took on a more competitive edge this year. Jean's disdain for Eren's chosen life path had woken an all-out battle between the two which they channeled into their construction paper and glue sticks. They ended up with approximately two miles of paper chains, enough orange clove balls to make the air in the kitchen unbreathable, and more paper snowflakes than would fit on the house's windows. Armin did have to hand it to them, both boys were good at snipping out secret messages: if you squinted, at least half the snowflakes had 'cocksucker' or 'moron' disguised within the elaborate diamond-shaped cut outs.

Armin was an innocent bystander in a holiday craft war, but it gave him an excuse to watch Jean's criminally attractive hands as they confidently turned paper into snowflakes. And when Eren was distracted with his own crafts, Jean would glance over at Armin's work and quiz him on Christmas scenes from historical novels. So, although he would have preferred a relaxing afternoon where he didn't have to duck to avoid being hit by balled up paper or listen to Eren mutter mildly offensive slurs, he couldn't really complain.

When it came time to decorate the tree, Jean and Eren were determined to hang every single one of Carla's three hundred ornaments, which led to a debate over how to reach the top of the tree, which led to Armin sitting on Jean's shoulder's, Jean's head between his thighs and his shoulders surprisingly strong beneath him, which led to a lot of embarrassing warmth stirring in Armin's stomach.

Hanging glass baubles and hand knitted candy canes on a tree wasn't the time or place that Armin felt like he should have to confront feelings, but as Jean mumbled the words to "All I Want for Christmas" and substituted _"is you"_ with _"is to punch Eren in the balls",_ he couldn't stop thinking that in four days they would return to Trost and go their separate ways. Eren would cut Jean out of his life the first chance he got, and Jean would likely do the same. But Armin didn't want to forget about Jean in less than a week from now. He didn't want to say goodbye to the awkward, prickly, but good hearted guy he'd come to know over the past few days.

He was looking at it the wrong way, he realized, nearly dropping a glass reindeer on Jean's head as that strange tightening feeling returned to his chest. In four days, they were going back to the real world where Jean would no longer be Eren's 'boyfriend'. In five days, there would be nothing to stop him from admitting that he was maybe, sort of developing feelings to Jean.

"You okay up there?" Jean tilted his chin up and rested his head in the crook of Armin's thigh to look up at him. It was so tempting to trail a finger down the slope of his nose or around the shell of his ear.

"I'm good. How are your shoulders?"

"Pssh, don't worry about me. I could do this all day." The corners of his mouth quirked smugly, but his eyes stayed soft.

Four days seemed like a horribly long time to waste.

Maybe he didn't have to. Jean wasn't really Eren's boyfriend, and so long as he didn't interfere with Eren's plans there was no reason why he couldn't start flirting with Jean now.

He smiled down at Jean and took the tiny clay angel Jean handed up to him. Before he could think better of it, he bopped it against Jean's nose, earning a surprised laugh before he leaned forward to hang it on the tree.

"It's time for my little elves to make their deliveries!" Carla flounced into the living room with a bundle of green, red, and white striped fabric in her arms, effectively dispelling Armin's reflective mood.

"Oh Jesus," Eren muttered under his breath and he shared a commiserating grimace with Armin. They had emotionally out grown Carla's beloved elf costumes ten years ago, and physically five years ago. But they squeezed into them every year anyways because, after a day of relentless baking and decorating, it could make Carla smile wider than even a rowdy round of carols could.

Armin tapped on Jean's head and Jean backed up to the couch so Armin could climb down off his shoulders.

"We only have two costumes," Carla explained, happily dividing the pile of fabric into two stacks, "So I was thinking this year if you don't mind, Armin, honey, we could let Eren and Jean do the deliveries?"

  
_Ah, shaudenfreude_ Armin beamed widely, thanking the universe for giving Eren and Jean their comeuppance for annoying him all day. "Oh that's alright. I don't mind letting the happy couple have a turn!" He was feeling giddy in the wake of all his soul searching.

Both Eren and Jean shot him a disgusted look which he ignored as Carla pressed bundles of fabric into their arms and shuffled them toward the bathroom.

What emerged five minutes later was nothing short of glorious. The costumes were made up of red and white striped leggings, whimsically scalloped green velour shorts, and matching velour shirts adorned with jingle bells. One, the one Armin usually wore because it was marginally smaller, had a candy cane embroidered on the front. The other had a smiling Santa. Neither Eren nor Jean were particularly built, but the velour was pulled so tightly across their chests that it looked like one wrong move would be too much for the poor fabric. The shorts weren't much better. The seamstress clearly had not intended them to be worn by full grown men so she left no leeway for any sort of thigh or ass muscle and as a result the fabric rode up to scrunch scandalously at the tops of their thighs. The only thing keeping them somewhat decent was the god awful striped leggings that were mercifully stretchy enough to cover their legs.

"Look at you two!" Carla crooned, as if they didn't look like the opening of a gay porn. "The neighbors are going to love this."

"Neighbors?" Jean spluttered.

"Suck it up, buttmuch," Armin heard Eren hiss.

Carla handed them each floppy Santa hats, fluffy red mittens, and a basket brimming with bags of assorted cookies. "Oh I just have to get a picture of you two!"

Armin had the pleasure of standing behind Carla and grinning smugly as she arranged Jean and Eren in front of the door. Eren sucked it up like a champ, only snapping at Jean when he stepped on his foot, while Jean had resorted to sending wide-eyed pleading looks at Armin every few seconds. Armin just grinned back. He felt for Jean, but as far has he was concerned, Armin deserved a little something for dealing with their constant bickering.

Soon enough, Carla had wrapped them in warm scarves and shooed them out the door to deliver "cheer and holiday greetings to the neighborhood!"

She returned to the kitchen, insisting she needed to make sure they had enough cookies for the holiday party. Still chuckling to himself, Armin moved to the living room with his copy of Pride and Prejudice, skipping to the scene where Mr. Darcy asks Lizzy to marry him.

About thirty minutes later the front door slammed open and Jean and Eren clattered back into the house.

"Christ almighty, it's fucking freezing out there," Armin heard Jean bitching from the entryway.

"If you were a good Christmas elf, holiday spirit would be all you need to keep you warm."

"Shut the fuck up, Jaeger. I think my balls have frost bite."

There was a cackle of vindictive laughter from Eren.

"What time is it anyway?" Jean asked. "These tights are so small there's not room for my junk, much less my phone."

  
_I noticed,_ Armin thought then immediately chastised himself. He curled deeper into the couch, even more grateful that he had gotten to stay inside with a warm fire.

"Jean!" Carla sing-songed from the kitchen, "Guess who I've been talking to while you've been gone!"

Jean made a politely curious noise followed by a scuffle that suggested either he or Eren had started a shoving contest.

"Your mother!"

The scuffling went quiet.

"She is just the sweetest woman! She commented on the picture I posted of you two love birds."

For a moment there was nothing but silence--that was strange, Jean and Eren seemed to forget what silence was when they were in the same room. Armin twisted to see through the doorway to the foyer. Jean was standing stock still in the middle of the room, his face drained entirely of color. He reached out and grabbed a fistful of Eren's already strained shirt. "We need to have a conversation, babe," he gritted out, voice unusually high, and dragged Eren up stairs.

Something was wrong. Armin closed his book and pushed the throw blanket off his legs. He moved to the foyer and peered up the empty staircase just as Jean's muffled shouting broke the silence. Armin couldn't tell what he was saying, but whatever it was it wasn't good.

Carla emerged from the kitchen, her Santa hat askew. "Oh dear," her face creased with motherly concern, "did I cross a line? His mother seemed so sweet I didn't think anything of talking to her when she messaged me her number and said she'd love to chat."

"Don't worry, Carla." Armin gave her a forced smile even though a sick feeling was gnawing at his chest. It wasn't her fault. She wasn't the one who had agreed to make sure no part of this sham ended up on social media, and she shouldn't feel bad. "It's not your fault, Eren should have told you that Jean didn't want anything about this trip posted."

Her face crumpled. "Oh dear. I should go and apologize."

"No." Armin said quickly. This was not the time for her to inset herself into the conversation. She would definitely discover the rouse. "Let Eren handle it."

"If you're sure, honey. You know Jean better than I do."

Armin gave her another half hearted smile and gazed back up the staircase wondering exactly why Jean was so upset that that particular clause of their mediocre contract had been broken.

Carla returned to the kitchen and after a few more minutes of muffled yelling Eren clomped down the stairs looking harried.

"What the hell happened?" Armin hissed, feeling about ready to pull out his own hair.

Eren sighed dramatically and slouched into the living room, throwing himself down on the couch. "I don't know, he just went off on me. I guess my mom sort of outed him or whatever. "

The blood drained from Armin's face. He had hoped this was all a dumb spat--maybe Jean had a blanket aversion to social media, maybe he was one of those conspiracy theorist who thought the government was spying on everyone through Facebook -that would have been strange, but not a deal breaker. But this, this was bad. They had outed Jean to his own mother. Armin felt suddenly queasy. What had they unwittingly gotten Jean into? He knew very little about Jean's family but he knew that it should have been Jean's choice to tell them he was queer.

"He's being a fucking pussy about it. Fucking cry baby."

Armin's hand clenched around the battered hardback he hadn't realized he was still holding. Words were bubbling up his throat. He knew that this was all a joke to Eren, that homosexuality was just some farce he was putting on to screw with his parents, but he needed to learn some compassion, and some understanding of the gravity of outing someone. He was about to begin chewing Eren out, but another part of his brain reminded him that upstairs Jean was hurt, and scared, and angry and he probably needed a sympathetic shoulder more immediately than Eren needed a lesson in sympathy. Armin turned his back on Eren with a frustrated huff and jogged up the stairs.

He found Jean in the attic, a huddled lump under the blankets. He tip-toed quietly across the rug--a pointless gesture since it was impossible to enter the attic without the hatch creaking noisily--and perched on the end of the bed.

"Hey," he said gently. "Are you okay?"

"Fuck off," Jean's biting tone was somewhat dulled by what sounded like a stuffy nose.

Armin gave himself one long inhale and exhale to think and then tried again. "Eren told me what happened. I'm really, really sorry that we outed you. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." Jean sniffled under the blankets. Armin waited to see if Jean would ask him to leave. He still felt terrible. Jean shouldn't have to deal with all of this, especially not because of some dumb holiday prank. After a few seconds Jean groaned angrily and words spilled from under the blanket, "It's just that now she's texting me and saying that we need to talk..." He trailed off.

Armin knew he had had it easy. His grandfather always had a sixth sense about what was going on with Armin so he never really needed to come out, and he was lucky to have a guardian who loved him unconditionally. He didn't know Jean's situation, but from what Carla said, it sounded hopeful.

"Carla sounded like she had a good conversation with your mom. Maybe you should take her up on the offer to talk."

"Hell no."

Armin chewed his lip. "Are you sure that's the best idea?"

"You aren't her gay ass disappointment of a son."

Armin sighed and smoothed out a wrinkle in the quilt next to him. He couldn't make Jean's decisions for him, and he couldn't undo the damage Eren and Carla had caused, even if it had been unwittingly done. He hated feeling helpless, but he knew not to overstay his welcome.

"I'll be downstairs," he said gently, "if you need anything or want to talk."

And with that he left Jean to sort out his thoughts.

Armin wandered down stairs. All the humor, and annoyance, and light bubbly feelings of blooming infatuation had drained out of him and been replaced by gnawing concern. The red bows tied along the banister suddenly looked garish and over-festive, the wooden smiles of the nutcrackers in the foyer looked clenched and painful. His brain was teeming with possible outcomes: Jean's mother disowning him, Jean's mother embracing him, a huge fight that would never be resolved but pointedly ignored at Kirschtein family gatherings, Jean's mother politely asking all the wrong questions as she tried to understand, Jean feeling too unsure of himself and too powerless in the situation to do anything other than let the open secret fester and come between them. Objectively, Armin knew there were as many positive outcomes as negative outcomes, but his mind lingered longer on the negative.

He found Eren and Mikasa setting up a game of Stratigo in the dining room. Armin sat at the chair they had left for him and stared at the board. He knew that he needed to talk to Eren, to impress upon him why Jean was upset and why Eren should be understanding, but he was too tired, so he let them lay out the pieces without protest.

As he watched Eren and Mikasa deploy their pieces around the board he wondered if this had ruined his chances with Jean. It was a and ugly, selfish thought, and inconsequential in comparison to what Jean was working through, but he couldn't help but wonder. Up until an hour ago Armin thought he had a real chance with Jean. He liked Jean, kind of a lot, and he didn't want this to ruin his chances at building something more with Jean. Maybe he shouldn't have left him alone in the attic. Maybe he should have stayed and waited for Jean to be ready to talk. He just wanted to be supportive. He just wanted to help.

Eren's foot collided with Armin's shin under the table. "Mikasa are you done with your turn?"

"You're kicking the wrong person," Armin snapped, jerking his leg out of Eren's reach.

Mikasa's head jerked up and there was a soft thump as something dropped into her lap. "What?"

"Wait, are you on your phone? Lame."

Mikasa embarrassed was a rare sight. "It's Armin's turn," she said quickly, passing over the dice.

Armin looked at his pieces, realizing he couldn't remember his strategy, if he ever had one. He pushed the dice away. "I surrender," he said.

"Ugh, c'mon, you guys suck tonight."

Armin stood, straightening his spine defiantly against Eren's annoyed grumble. He paused for a moment debating whether he should say all the things vying for attention in his brain, but he was too fucking tired so he give Eren one heavy look and left.

When Armin had brushed his teeth and returned to the attic, Jean was on his back staring up into the rafters with tired, slow-blinking eyes. His cheeks were dry and his breathing was calm, but he didn't so much as flick his eyes in Armin's direction as he shut the hatch. Armin didn't want to push. It wasn't his place, so he turned his back, quietly changed into his sleep shirt, and crawled onto his side of the bed. His pillow was cold, but the sheets were warm from Jean's trapped body heat.

It took a while, but when Jean eventually spoke he sounded more exhausted than angry. "It's not like this at home," he began and then stopped to clear his throat before continuing. "I was only gone for 6 months and my mom had already moved all my stuff into boxes to make space for her new kids. And there was no way was I gonna go live with my dad and his big happy family." He was gaining momentum now. He rolled toward Armin, pulling the blankets around him so only his face was visible. His eyes were still ringed with red. "Carla and Grisha kept Eren and Mikasa's rooms the same all this time. Even you have a room here. You all still have places here."

Armin turned on his side so he was facing Jean. Their heads were only a foot apart on their separate pillows.

"Carla and Grisha have always been good to me," Armin said carefully, "but you have to remember, Jean, that they aren't my family. I have a space here but it has never been my home."

Jean closed his eyes, scrunching up his face and cursing under his breath. "Shit. I know, I'm sorry, and I'm not trying to say I'm the only one with shit in my past, but..." He huffed out a sigh and one of his hands emerged from the blankets to scrub over his face. "Am I being an ass? You can tell me if I'm being an ass, you know."

"Are you and your mom close?" Armin asked instead.

The barest hint of a smile trembled at the corner of Jean's lips before he sniffed and it disappeared. "I was a total momma's boy growing up. I don't know how she managed with me being underfoot every second and running a bakery. And after Dad fucked off it was just us you know?"

"And now?"

"Last time we talked was when I called her on her birthday in September."

Armin though he understood. He could see the shape of Jean's life. It was the reverse of his and Mikasa's: they had been displaced so young and the Jaegers opened up a place in their home and their hearts to make sure they always had somewhere to go. But Jean had all of that as a kid, and it was taken away from him as a young man, leaving him afloat.

Armin pushed a lock of hair that had fallen in front of his face behind his ear. "So she never found out about Marco?"

Jean shrugged, the blankets wrapped around him moving up and down. "She always knew Marco was my best friend, and we kept it hush hush when we were no longer just friends--didn't need to give all the Bible thumpers in our town something to gossip about. I already had plans to go off to college anyways so why rock the boat? Especially right when she'd met _Dave_ who watches football and moaned about the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell for months." His voice held a slight quaver in it when he said, "Maybe I would have told her eventually, but we're not that close anymore."

Armin picked at a loose string trailing from the seam of his pillowcase. "You know, I'm pretty sure my grandfather knew I was gay before I did." He offered the anecdote carefully, waiting for Jean to bite, unsure if it would help him feel better.

"Yeah?" He could feel Jean watching him pick at the loose string.

"It's actually kind of funny looking back on it. One night I get home from a study group and Carla and Eren are at my grandpa's kitchen table. I sit down and they launch into a very detailed and very enthusiastic discussion on the importance of safe sex even if both participants are men. Eren just sat there stupefied and I was horrified. I mean not only had two of the most important adults in my life figured out that I was gay--a concept I was still having trouble putting a label to--but they decided to give me the gay sex talk in a room with my best friend."

Amusement was dancing at the corners on Jean's eyes now so Armin barreled on. "Well, it was only when I asked my grandfather after Carla and a completely mortified Eren left, that I discovered the reason they lectured us together was because they had somehow gotten the idea that we were 'experimenting' together."

Jean snorted into his pillow and Armin felt a ridiculous sense of accomplishment. He continued proudly, "I set him straight. Told him I was gay but I had no interest in Eren. It was utterly awkward and humiliating-- _he thought I was having sex with my best friend!_  But looking back, I think he was pretty perceptive."

Jean chuckled and shook his head, the motion smooshing his cheek adorably into the pillow. "I don't understand how either of you could ever possibly think that his parents would be shocked if he brought home a boyfriend."

Armin shrugged, more pleased that he'd made Jean laugh than bothered by the slight to his faculties of reason. "Hindsight is 20/20."

A comfortable silence fell over the room. Jean was clearly pulling through to the other side of the emotional shit storm he had been thrown into and Armin found himself hoping desperately that it was all going to be okay, that he wasn't giving Jean false hope.

"Is there anything more I can do to cheer you up?" he asked.

"This is going to sound completely lame," Jean said, scrunching his nose like he was embarrassed to continue, "but a hug would be really nice."

Could hearts actually melt? Because Armin's felt like a gooey puddle of warmth in his chest. He scooted across the space between them and, as well as he could while they were still laying down, he wrapped his arms around Jean. He pressed his face into Jean's neck. He still smelled faintly of sugar cookies.

They pulled apart after an appropriately brief moment, but the warmth of Jean's skin lingered on Armin's hands and the tip of his nose. Jean switched off the lamp and the room settled into a quiet darkness only marred by a kiss of moonlight coming through the one small window.

"Goodnight, Armin," Jean murmured.

"Goodnight, Jean."

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! I feel like I should explain the process this story goes through so you know why it's not updated on a set schedule. I wrote a first draft in October and did a few rounds of edits in December. Now, between each chapter posting, Lucabee does a final pass, points out holes and makes the scenes a bit snappier and then I do a reread for continuity. The problem is that Luca is busy making comics and having her art in galleries and fancy shit like that so sometimes it take a while before she can get to the next chapter! She's traveling for the next few days, but hopefully I can get her to edit the next chapter by the end of next week!


	5. Day 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for Carla's famous Christmas party! Eren gets tipsy, Jean gets a phone call, and Armin can't help it any more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for how late this is other than life is weird and there is so much fic to write and so little time :)

When he woke up, Armin knew it had happened again. The quilts were tangled around his waist, his forehead was pressed to the back of Jean's neck, and his arm was draped over Jean's bare side.

  
_Great_.

He rolled onto his back and blinked into the soft morning light that suffused the attic and illuminated a thousand little dust motes hanging in the air. There was no saving his dignity at this point, but he didn't have to make Jean suffer through his nighttime clinginess more than necessary.

Next to him Jean stretched and rolled over, tangling the blankets around himself as he did so.

"Morning," he mumbled. His eyes were still half lidded and he looked like he was having a love affair with his pillow. It was a little unfair.

"Sorry about that," Armin gestured vaguely between them. "I'm a heat seeker. There's really nothing to do about it unless we want to construct a wall of pillows."

"No biggie," Jean pushed himself up to sitting, the blankets sliding down his bare chest. "It's a lot more pleasant when Carla isn't trying to break down the door and I don't have to sit on you."

Armin hummed in agreement although having Jean on top of him moments after waking up had been it's own exquisite type of torture. He appreciated Jean manfully ignoring any morning wood that might have occurred. This poor boy, trapped in the madness of the Jaeger household and forced to cuddle - _wait_. Had Jean just implied that cuddling with him was _pleasant?_  


Armin's heart thumped louder than strictly necessary. Maybe he still had a chance.

"Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Jean!" Carla's voice sang through the floor. "It's time for breakfast. I'm going to need help from all my little angels to get ready for the party today!"

Armin poked Jean in the ribs.

"Be down in a minute!" Jean called on cue.

Carla's rendition of "Tis' the Season" drifted up to them as she tramped back downstairs.

They climbed out of bed and faced their respective corners to change, a tradition that, while still uncomfortable, was at least becoming familiar.

When Armin was done he turned to find Jean in an undershirt, pulling on a navy and cream sweater. Armin stopped for a moment to appreciate the sight: the beautifully tailored sweater tapering at his waist and emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders. Then he cleared his throat.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Jean turned, eyebrows arched in confusion. "Getting dressed?"

"Not in that you're not. Where's your Christmas sweater?"

"Seriously? I've been wearing that for three days!"

"Put on a clean undershirt and get used to wearing it for another three."

Jean gaped at him for a moment. But he must have decided it wasn't any crazier than anything else he had been asked to do since arriving in the Jaeger household and tugged the blue and cream sweater off. It occurred to Armin that he had done the world a disservice as Jean's torso was swallowed up in bulky red yarn.

"Well, at least the red brings out my eyes."

Any semblance of Jean's good mood evaporated when the stepped into the dinning room and Eren looked up from his bowl of oatmeal.

Grisha was at the head of the table, hiding behind the newspaper, Eren to his left and Mikasa to his right. It would have been logical for Jean to take the seat next to Eren, but he waited for Armin to take the seat next to Mikasa then sat next to Armin, reaching across the table to meaningfully move his place setting across the table to his new spot.

Armin sighed. He had a feeling it was going to be a long day.

Carla bustled into the room, as usual a font bubbling over with Christmas cheer. She handed a grocery list to Grisha and pressed an adoring kiss to his forehead.

"The stores will start selling out of holiday items, so if you could get these _this morning_ before they do."

"Of course, darling," Grisha adjusted his glasses and squinted down at the list. "What's this it says here? "All spice"? We have a whole spice rack. Doesn't it make more sense if I just get the ones we don't have already?"

Carla pressed a hand hand to her lips, her eyes dancing with amusement, "Mikasa?"

"I'll take care of it." She pushed away her empty bowl and plucked the list out of Grisha's hand. "C'mon, Dad, I'm driving."

Carla followed them out of the dining room, leaving the room icier with no one but Armin to act as a buffer between Eren and Jean. As expected, it took Eren less than a minute to instigate a fight.

"You look like a fucking mess," Eren noted, around a spoonful of oatmeal.

Armin disagreed; sure, Jean's eyes were still a tinge red and the purple shadows underneath them had darkened, but Armin thought the gaunt grad student look fitted him well.

"Thanks to you," Jean shot back.

"Oh c'mon, don't act like I'm the bad guy. I didn't post that picture and even if I did, you should be thanking me since you're obviously too much of a coward to tell your mom that you love it up the butt."

Jean's grip on his spoon was becoming dangerously tight.

"Eren," Armin warned.

Eren just made a disgusted noise and dug back into his oatmeal. Jean ground his teeth together as if debating whether to chew Eren out—Armin almost wanted him to, Eren was being an asshole—but after a moment he picked up his bowl of oatmeal and left the room.

Armin wanted to go after him, but he stayed to level a glare at Eren. "Go apologize."

"Oh, don't take his side," Eren brandished his spoon and a glob of oatmeal splattered onto the table top.

There was a reservoir of patience that each of the Jaeger family kept specifically for Eren, and Armin drew upon it to stay calm. It was running dangerously dry.

"Since you identify as straight," he said as calmly as he could, "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you don't know how personal coming out is to some people. Jean's identity is his business and it should have been his choice to tell his mom. You didn't directly out him, but you're attitude has been completely awful and unsympathetic since."

"He's not your boyfriend," Eren said, air quotes around 'boyfriend,' "so why the fuck do you even care?"

"Because I care about Jean! And, as a general rule, I try to be a decent human!"

"Whoa, jeeze."

Armin realized he was standing, his palms pressed to the table as he leaned angrily across it to glare at Eren. Eren blinked at him, wide-eyed. Armin tried to slow his breathing and pried his hands up from where he had slammed them on either side of his bowl of oatmeal.

"If it's that important to you I'll apologize." Eren said, sounding vaguely stunned. "It just seemed kind of dumb you know, like he freaked out over _one_ stupid picture."

Armin tried to regulate his breathing. This was Eren, he was an idiot but he didn't actually mean to be hurtful. There were tears threatening to spill from the corners of Armin's eyes, but he ignored them in favor of gritting out the words Eren needed to hear and take to heart. "Coming out is a big deal. Maybe he over reacted when he yelled at you, but you have no idea how scary it is to think that the people you love might reject you because of something you can't change."

"Yeah, okay, yeah. I mean, I don't know, but you're like always right so..." Eren was nodding enthusiastically and pushing his bowl away. "I'll do that—yeah, I'll do that right now." He extracted himself from his chair, nearly toppling it over in the process and jogged around the table to find where Jean had gone.

Armin ran a hand through his hair. He hadn't meant to lose his temper at Eren, but seeing Jean in distress affected him more than he expected, and as confident and carefree as he was about his sexuality now, he wasn't sure he would ever forget the fear from all those years being a scrawny kid in a conservative town who tried desperately to keep his sexuality hidden from his bullies.

He took a second to compose himself, and then pushed his chair back and followed Eren, just in case he needed to mediate.

They found Jean in the kitchen, earbuds in, flipping furiously through screens on his phone. His uneaten bowl of oatmeal was on the counter in front of him, next to a stack of other dirty dishes. At the other end of the kitchen, Carla was browsing a cook book and bobbing her head to John Lennon's "So This is Christmas."

"Hey," Eren stopped next to Jean. When Jean didn't look up Eren tugged his earbud out, "Hey, loser."

"What the hell?" Jean scrambled to catch the earbud before it fell into his oatmeal. His eyes, Armin noticed, were a little redder than before. "Fuck off."

"Not going to happen. I'm apologizing."

Across the kitchen, Carla looked up.

"Really?" Jean scoffed. " _You're_ apologizing."

"Yes," Eren folded his arms across his chest, looking irritated. "Armin informed me that I was being a dick and I should be sympathetic to your distress because people finding out you're gay can be scary or something so I'm sorry I was rude to you about it."

It sounded like a laundry list, but Armin was impressed. Eren had absorbed more of his lecture than he had thought. Out of his peripheral vision he saw Carla pressing a hand to her heart—but whether that was because her famously stubborn child had just said the words 'I'm sorry' or not, he wasnt sure. If Eren and Jean weren't careful about what they said next, they were going to have a lot of explaining to do.

Jean, however, seemed at a loss for a witty response. His jaw made a few aborted attempts at speech, but nothing came out.

"You don't have to say anything," Eren supplied. "It was my bad."

Jean rubbed the back of his head, shoulders loosing some of the defensive hunch they had carried since yesterday. 

"I-" he started.

"Oh, _boys!_ "

Eren and Jean jumped as Carla swept up to them, wiping an actual tear from her eye. "I'm _so happy_ you've made up. I was worried sick. And Jean, I hope you know I'm sorry too, I never meant to invade your privacy."

Carla, for all her small-town-ness, was surprisingly canny. Now twice as stunned, Jean looked between Eren and Carla before his gaze slid desperately over to Armin. Armin shrugged minutely and offered a small smile. Jean's expression softened and he looked back at Eren.

"Thanks, babe," he said and he leaned in to press a kiss to Eren's forehead. Eren managed not to grimace. Armin's stomach did a strange flip that he willfully ignored.

"Aw. Why don't you two take the morning off. Armin and I can handle the party planning!"

Both boys blanched. Eren may have apologized, but Armin knew too well that the last thing they wanted to do was spend more one-on-one time together.

"Mom, it's really okay—"

"Oh honey, I remember what it was like to be your age. Every squabble felt like the end of the world, but the make-up loving was always so good."

And with that and a twinkle in her eye she patted Eren on the cheek and traipsed out of the room, hooking Armin's arm on the way out. As he was led from the room he could see his horror mirrored in Eren and Jean's faces as they all cringed over what she could possibly mean by 'make-up loving.'

 

* * *

 

Night fell, and an army of string lights twinkled into existence. "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" blared from the speakers. Tinsel sparkled on the tree and where it was tacked around the room in glittering scallops, twisted around and through yards and yards of paper chains. Guests hung their coats in the foyer and trickled into the living room for finger foods and bottomless glasses of warm, spiced wine.

Armin wasn't a typical party person, but Carla's holiday party was always one of his favorite days of the year.

Most of the faces were ones he had seen his whole life, now a little older, and Armin found his arm grabbed or his cheeks patted by what felt like half the town before the party was an hour old. When he managed to escape from Mrs. Louis, the elderly mayor who insisted on telling him how much she _missed seeing him in that darling little elf costume this year_ , he craned his neck to see where Jean had gotten to. If Armin was overwhelmed, Jean must be almost catatonic.

He spotted Jean near the dessert spread, snapping the point off a star-shaped cookie and looking around the room like the milling guests were wolves ready to descend. Holding his wine to his chest, Armin wove through the forest of Christmas sweaters and Santa hats to get to him. He could smell the cloves wafting from the mulled wine pot on the beverage table when—

"Jean! Sweetheart I've been looking for you!" Carla emerged out of a gaggle of women in candy cane and holly printed turtlenecks, put a maternal arm around Jean's shoulders, and disappeared into a wall of people. Armin stopped, watching them disappear into the kitchen and wondering if he should go after them.

He helped himself to one of the many delicious cookies (Eren's batch had, mysteriously, not made it onto the party platters) and watched the festivities unfolding. Carla knew how to throw a good party. Just as he decided that, yes, he should save Jean from having to keep the facade up in front of Carla all by himself, a hand clapped on his shoulder and he turned to find Grisha looking at him imploringly over the top of his round spectacles. Armin caught sight of the goey lipstick kisses smeared on both his cheeks and understood.

"Well," Grisha said to someone behind him, clapping Armin on the shoulder once again, "there's certainly somewhere else I should probably be going. Armin here will keep you company." And he gracelessly exited the conversation.

Two women, no taller than Armin's shoulder and the specific type of round you only got from Sunday church potlucks and Friday bottomless-margarita bingo nights, grinned up at him in Grisha's absence. He couldn't remember their names, but he did remember saving Grisha from their sticky kisses in years past. He took a deep breath. If the smile he pasted on was a little manic, no one could expect any more.

"That man," one of the lipsticked women hummed. Her hair was the same dark chocolate as Carla's, although he could see the slight shimmer of silver roots coming in under the dye. She was sporting a garish but festive red sequined blazer.

"Hate to see him go," the other one added. She was bedecked in a green sweater with floofy red velvet bows trimmed around the shoulders, "But love to watch him leave."

"Carla wrangled such a catch."

They turned toothy smiles in Armin's direction, and he tried not to flinch. He could never keep Carla's extended family straight, but he knew they all shared a relentless familial energy, a love of late 80s fashion, and an inexplicably attraction to Grisha Jaeger. And, in the case of these women, a desire to discuss this attraction with Armin.

Thankfully, they were far more interested in plumbing him for gossip than discussing Grisha's posterior with him. 

"So Armin," Red Sequins said leaning in conspiratorially, "tell us about Eren's new beau! Carla has been very secretive about him."

"Candy! Don't tease him," Ribbons scolded.

Red Sequins—Carla's aunt Candy, Armin remembered now—pressed a hand to her heart looking genuinely troubled. " _Oh_ , how insensitive of me. I didn't mean to rub salt in a fresh wound!"

Armin blinked at her. "Excuse me?"

"Well," Ribbons—Carla's other aunt, Darling—leaned into Armin to stage-whisper, "we know how _attached_ you are to Eren."

She rubbed his shoulder sympathetically while her sister nodded.

"We always thought you two would make the sweetest couple."

Armin blinked at them. What were they even discussing? What was his life, at this moment?

"Don't get too down!" Darling squeezed his shoulder bracingly. "Eren is lovely, but there are other fish in the sea!"

"But don't tell Carla we said that," Candy winked, another familial trait. "Our little secret!"

"And who knows how long this Jean character will be around!"

"We haven't had the chance to give him our stamp of approval yet!

"Chin up, Armin! There's hope for you yet!"

Armin hid his exasperation in a sip of wine. _Does literally everyone in Shingashina think Eren and I are some sort of star-crossed lovers? Why am_ I _the only one who finds that ridiculous?_  


"Er, thanks," he said awkwardly, which they seemed to read as dejected sincerity. He weathered their barrage of good natured elbowing and cheek pats by ruminating on how scandalized they would be to find out it was actually that _'Jean character'_ that he was pining after.

Candy took a swig of whatever she was drinking—a tumbler of brandy by the look of it—and smacked her lips. There was a thick smear of red lipstick left on her glass. "Darling, do you remember those adorable pictures of Eren and Armin playing house?"

"The ones of Armin in that little sundress?"

"Yes! So precious!"

"How old were you when you grew out of that phase?"

"Assuming you ever left it!" The two women almost fell over one another in their giggles.

  
_Ah, there it is_ , he thought. The other shoe dropping. Being entirely unnecessary to a conversation about himself was something the extended Jaeger family had inured him to, but their assumptions still grated. Thinking he was in love with his best friend was one thing—he had learned early how hard it was for people to wrap their minds around the bond he shared with Eren and Mikasa—but good-natured stereotyping was still stereotyping. 

_They probably wouldn't believe me if I told them that is was really Eren wearing the sundress in that picture._

"I bet Jean wouldn't look half as good in a sundress!" Darling chuckled, evoking another peal of laughter from Candy.

Armin was out of wine, which meant he was out of liquid to drown himself in, so it was time to form an exit strategy.

Then, as if by divine intervention, a delicate hand rested on his shoulder. "I believe it was Eren who was actually more fond of sundresses," a friendly voice interjected," and if you don't mind, I am going to steal my old student away from you."

Darling and Candy made pouting expressions but Armin was already pivoting to follow his rescuer. No point wasting a perfect exit.

A short woman with billowing salt-and-pepper hair and a softly jangling jingle bell on a leather cord around her neck (in homage to _The Polar Express,_  Armin knew) guided him toward the buffet table in the dining room.

"Thanks for the rescue, Ms. Luccero."

"Armin, it's been sixteen years since I was your teacher. You can call me Anna Lucia now." The lines around her eyes crinkled as she smiled up at him. He smiled back, feeling a little foolish.

"You know I still have that picture of you and Eren with him in his favorite pink dress from the dress-up bin." She continued, her kind, dark brown eyes twinkling. "You always did make the cutest married couple."

Armin groaned, about ready to hide under the buffet table and never come out. "Not you too. Contrary to popular belief I have _never_ wanted to marry Eren."

Anna Lucia chuckled, "No, no. Give me some credit, I remember the coup you pulled in my classroom. I've always known that marriage was a means to an end for you two."

She winked, which was much less sinister coming from his favorite old teacher. Reaching the buffet, she began loading two reindeer-print paper plates with finger sandwiches he'd helped Carla assemble and tamales from the small mountain she brought every year. Armin relaxed, finally, and accepted one of the plates.

"I missed my favorite cookie elf yesterday," she said with a twinkle in her kind eyes.

Armin shrugged, not at all apologetic, "There are only two costumes."

"I can't believe Carla still makes you wear those."

"I'm suprised they still fit!" Armin laughed. As the Jaeger's neighbor, Anna Lucia had seen them in those ridiculous elf get ups every year. It was hard to feel ashamed in front of someone who had been witness to that type of repeated humiliation.

"Was Eren's boyfriend wearing yours? He looked like the not-so-jolly green giant."

A small smile tugged at Armin's lips, "That's Jean for you."

Ana Lucia looked thoughtful as she ladled potato casserole onto Armin's already bursting plate. She handed him a fork, and swiped his empty cup with a look that said she knew he'd been stress drinking Christmas wine on an empty stomach. "I shudder to agree with Candy and Darling," she said carefully, "but I wasn't really sold on him. He and Eren didn't seem to have great chemistry... or any for that matter."

Armin wrinkled his nose and speared a bite of food with his fork, "Yeah... they're working on things." There was something about lying to Anna Lucia that made him feel terrible. Maybe all those kindergarten lessons in honesty and integrity had stuck better than he thought.

Ana Lucia raised one eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. "He's a bit of a grumpy pants isn't he?"

Armin shrugged as he chewed. When he swallowed he said, "He's not that bad, he's actually a really sweet guy. I've gotten to know him on this trip and, sure, he's kind of an emotional hedgehog, but when you get past the spines he's really genuine. He's kind of like Eren: they both have a lot of feelings and are really bad at communicating them. He's a bit of a train-wreck, but it's oddly endearing?" He shoved a bite of tamale in his mouth before he could continue to spill his guts.

Anna Lucia pursed her lips consideringly. "You've always been patient, and a good judge of character." Armin wondered if he was being paranoid, but he had the feeling she had seen through him. He shoved more food in his face, torn between trying to eat politely in front of the woman who had taught him manners and hiding his guilt.

"But that's Eren," she said with a sigh, mercifully letting it go. "How are _you_? How's school going? Have you met some dashing anthropologist with a trust fund at your fancy new school?"

Armin chuckled, relieved, "I wish there was a trust fund involved."

"So there is someone?"

Armin weighed his options: he couldn't tell her the whole truth, but Anna Lucia could smell an outright lie a mile away. Eventually the burning desire to talk to _someone_ about his feelings for Jean won out. "Actually, yes. He's not who I ever expected to fall for and honestly not it's not even really a 'thing' yet, but I'm working on it. We'll see what happens after the holidays."

A true smile spread across Anna Lucia's face. "Well, if you ever need to talk you know where I live. I'm no gossip but I never mind hearing straight from the source."

"Thanks Ms. L—Anna Lucia"

She returned his smile with warmth. "So tell me what you're reading these days, I've been hearing about..."

The party grew to a crescendo around them as they swapped reading lists. The warmth of the wine and the heartiness of the food seeped into Armin's bones, making him feel warm as the chattering of voices ebbed into comfortable background noise. This was what he loved so much about Christmas with the Jaegers, catching up with the people who had loved and supported him as a child, gorging on holiday food, hearing familiar laughter erupt around the room. It was as close to home as he had ever felt since his grandfather died.

"Ms. Lucerro!" Eren bounded up, a pair of stuffed antlers attached to his head with a headband. He gave Anna Lucia a one armed hug and edged around them to the crock of mulled wine.

"Eren, are you sure you're old enough for that?" Anna Lucia gave him a stern look.

Eren's shoulders sagged and he pouted, "But Ms. Lucerro..." he whined.

"I'm just kidding," she grinned at him. "It's Christmas."

Eren returned her grin bashfully and wasted no time ladling himself a cupful. He slung an arm around Anna Lucia's shoulders. "See this is why you were always my favorite teacher." Anna Lucia chuckled and patted his hand fondly. Eren turned to Armin, and said with a lazy twirl of his wrist, "Armin, I seem to have misplaced my boyfriend. Go find him for me."

"I'm not your boyfriend's keeper," Armin huffed.

"Uh, yeah you are." Eren rolled his eyes as if Armin was being ridiculous, "You're like the Jean whisperer. C'mon, I've been trying to find him for like thirty minutes. Mom keeps nagging me to show him off."

Armin sighed. He wasn't Eren's messenger boy, but he should check on Jean and make sure he wasn't feeling too lost in this house full of strangers. He waved goodbye to Anna Lucia and wove his way across the living room, feeling her knowing gaze following him.

Jean wasn't in the living room or dinning room so Armin headed for the kitchen because a) that was where Carla had lead him earlier b) unlike Eren he used logic to locate people and c) he actually gave a shit where Jean was. Eren probably hadn't looked past the buffet table before handing the responsibility over to Armin.

The kitchen was empty. Voices and music floated in from the living room and dining room, and turned into a muffled, indistinguishable hum: the distant sound of holiday cheer. Armin was about to turn around when he spotted a head of shaggy brown hair outside of the glass paneled door that led to the side yard where the trashcans and yard equipment were stored. Jean was hunched over on the step, looking surprisingly small in his lumpy sweater. Armin's heart constricted.

Jean looked up when Armin opened the door, then back down at his hands. The Jaeger's cordless house phone was cradled between them. Armin sat next to him, the cold concrete biting through the material of his pants.

"Hey," he started gently, "everyone's asking about you in there."

Jean passed the phone back and forth between his hands, his eyes unfocused. "That's 'cause I'm the fucking life of the party."

Armin bit his lip. It was patented Jean egotism without any of the spirit behind it. Armin wanted to push and prod, but he remembered the way Jean had iced Eren out, how he had rolled over in bed and confided in Armin when he was good and ready. If he was patient, Armin had a feeling Jean would talk to him eventually, so he waited him out, shivering slightly as cold air got in through the knit of his sweater. There were fingers of frost just visible on the concrete in front of them, but the sky was clear, a dark velvet blue in which the silvery stars were so clear Armin could imagine that he could see their actual outlines.

"So..." Jean's voice was steadier than Armin expected, "I talked to my mom."

Armin released a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. "And?"

Jean paused and Armin tried not to let his brain race to the worst conclusions. "It went...better than I thought it would."

Something loosened in Armin's chest and a small rush of euphoria made his heart pound. "Was she surprised?"

"Surprisingly, no? She was actually pretty cool about it, before she started yelling at me for not telling her I was spending Christmas with my boyfriend and for not bringing Carla a hostess gift."

Armin smiled at the disbelieving fondness in Jean's voice, "Clearly your mother has her priorities in order."

"I know, right?" A breathy laugh escaped Jean's lips, "She actually wants me to come home for Easter. I might not be step-dad Dave's child of the year any time soon, but... she thinks he'll come around."

"That's great. I'm really happy for you, Jean." Armin looked at him, let his eyes roam over the lines of his jaw and the slope of his nose, over his down turned lashes and the lingering indent where he had been biting his lip. His heart kept up it's too fast rhythm and he remembered that the problem with looking at Jean was he never wanted to look away. "Are you okay?" He asked gently, "You still look like you're going to puke."

"Yeah," Jean turned toward him and a smile spread across his features. Not the type of rye grin he usually wore, but a real, true smile, the unstoppable, euphoria-induced type. It made Armin's traitorous heart gallop in his chest. "I think I am. Actually, this is the happiest I've been for a while."

It was too much for Armin to take. He let impulse override every logical faculty telling him it was a horrible idea, and he kissed Jean.

The startled noise Jean made against his lips was the best thing Armin had ever heard. The phone fell and the back cracked off and the batteries skidded across the icy cement, but it didn't matter because Jean was cupping Armin's jaw and kissing him back.

The kiss lasted a mere few seconds, but Armin swore he heard sleigh bells and we wouldn't have been surprised if a gentle snowfall had begun to swirl romantically around them, collecting on their shoulders and catching in their eyelashes.

They pulled back. No magical, choreographed snowfall, just a warm tingling in his lips and a somersaulting sensation in his stomach. Armin looked down at his knees, trying to hide the unstoppable grin from lighting up his face like a smug idiot. He risked a glance at Jean only to find him doing the same.

They sat in silence for a moment, shoulders just barely brushing as they gathered their wits and basked in the moment. Armin didn't want to speak, worried it might break the spell. Then a particularly cold gust of wind whipped by and Armin remembered that they were sitting on cold concrete in thirty degree weather in nothing but their Christmas sweaters. Armin shivered. "We should probably get back to the party before anyone thinks I'm stealing Eren's boyfriend."

"Aren't you?" Jean grinned at him, at once cheeky and embarrassed.

How could Armin resist when Jean bit his lip like that and looked at him from under his lashes? He pressed his lips to Jean's one more time before tugging him up by the sleeve of his sweater and leading him into the house.

They stumbled through the kitchen into the crowded, blessedly warm dining room, and put a precautionary few inches between their bodies.

They found Eren surrounded by a pack of his female relatives (Candy and Darling included), all tittering as he orated some dramatic story with glassy eyes and flushed cheeks. Armin smirked; Eren was such a lightweight, all it took was a glass of wine and he'd start spewing embarrassing stories about himself, a fact these women seemed to be taking advantage of.

"Jean, baby, hotcakes!" Eren slurred, making grabby hands in Jean's direction. "Where have you been!"

Jean snorted. He caught Armin's eye and an almost wicked smile crossed his face—Armin knew he should be worried about what a look like that meant, but he just felt weak in the knees. Then Jean winked and, with the smarmiest look on his dumb, handsome face, sauntered over to Eren.

"Sorry, sweetcheeks." He slung an arm around Eren's waist. The women around them melted into a cooing mess. Eren's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but a second later he was draping himself on Jean's shoulders.

Armin watched the act with his arms crossed, amusement mixing with the smug knowledge of the moment they had just shared. Then Jean caught his eye again and, not looking away, smacked his lips in an over dramatic kiss on Eren's forehead. Their audience swooned. Armin bit back his laugh and shook his head just enough for Jean to see. What a ridiculous tease.

From there the party was a swirl of mulled wine, oldies dance tunes, and Christmas lights. Armin let himself get caught up in it, let himself be dragged into conversations with Eren's adoring relatives, let Anna Lucia ply him with cake, gave into the invitation to dance with Carla when "Sweet Caroline" came on.

But no matter where he was or who he was with, he was hyper-aware of Jean in his periphery.

He moderated a game of pin the nose on Rudolph for Grisha's nephews while occasionally glancing across the room to where Jean sat in an arm chair. Eren, draped smugly in his lap, was holding a shouted conversation with one of his cousins. He was clearly enjoying the attention that bringing a significant other to a family party was garnering him, which was probably why he hadn't staged anything dramatic. But Armin wasn't keeping tabs on Eren, he was to busy feeling giddy because of the way Jean broke into a goofy smile every time they made eye contact.

A half-an-hour later, when he was chatting with Mr. Donovan, one of his grandfather's old bowling buddies, he made a dumb pun about eggnog and it was Jean's laugh he heard from a few feet over.

They didn't wind up near each other again until a chance meeting in the foyer as Armin was returning from the bathroom and Jean and Eren were coming back from escorting one of Eren's older relatives to her car.

"Wow, you're really such a devoted boyfriend to Eren," Armin blinked innocently up at Jean.

Jean smirked at him, shoving his hands into his pockets as if he needed to restrain himself from putting them somewhere he wasn't supposed to. "Well, just between you and me, I make a fucking great boyfriend, if you know anyone who's interested."

Armin felt all warm and fuzzy inside, and the wine was making him cheeky, "I'm sure Eren's glad to have you."

Jean made a face and Armin laughed, but the sound was drowned out from a nearby squeal from Eren.

"What! No, Mom. Ew! I am a grown man."

"But you're never too old to give your mother a kiss!" Carla teased, pinching both his cheeks at once. They were on the threshold of the living room directly below a sprig of mistletoe.

"Fine," Eren grumbled and he leaned down to give Carla a peck on the lips.

Jean turned to Armin, scandalized.

"What, your family doesn't kiss?"

"Not on the lips!" Jean hissed.

"Don't worry about it." He tilted his head and gave Jean a sly smile, "Just try not to get caught under the mistletoe with Carla."

Jean looked aghast, but Eren was already marching moodily toward them so that he could drag Jean back into the party.

 

* * *

 

Nine o'clock passed and the party became truly wanton—well, as wanton as a living room of responsible and conscientious suburbanite parents could become. An honest to God dance party had started by the Christmas tree and a rowdy game of poker was taking place in the dinning room on the cleared buffet table.

Armin was flipping through the iPod someone had hooked up to Carla's stereo when someone began petting his hair. He turned to see a red faced Mikasa watching him with alcohol glazed eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"Your hair is very beautiful," she stated. "It reminds me of someone very dear to me."

Wow, she was well and truly inebriated if she was being both affectionate and nonsensical. "Someone that's not me?" He furrowed his brows skeptically. "Mikasa, do you have a drunk, imaginary friend?"

She just blinked at him and stated, "Armin wrestle me."

"What?"

"Arm wrestle. Armin, wrestle me. Arm wrestle me, Armin."

As soon as her intention became clear Armin put his arms behind his back and out of her immediate reach. "Mikasa, no. Remember what happened last time?" he pleaded.

Mikasa stared dangerously at him.

Jean sidled up to them, looking a little red cheeked and possibly tipsy himself.

"Jean," Mikasa intoned.

"Huh?"

She locked eyes with Jean and very slowly put out her hand.

"Mikasa," Armin warned.

Jean's brows pulled together in confusion and he lifted his hand, bringing his palm against Mikasa's in a sort of sideways high-five. As soon as their palms touched, Mikasa wrapped her fingers around his hand and slammed his arm down and to the side. Unlike an actual, premeditated arm wrestling match where there would have been a table, there was no surface to brace them, and so Jean went down with his arm. Once he was on his knees Mikasa released his hand, nodded approvingly and walked away.

"What the fuck was that?" Jean scrambled back to his feet, massaging his wrist.

"Uh, I think that means she likes you. Arm wrestling is a good thing in Mikasa's book."

"Oh." Jean was still massaging his wist, but he seemed to have lost track of his thoughts as he gazed down at Armin. Armin realized how close they were standing, their chests mere inches apart. If he wanted to, Armin could press up onto his toes and kiss Jean from this distance. And he wanted to, but he wasn't drunk enough to forget they had to continue with Eren's charade.

"I was just going to get a cookie," Jean said, sounding a touch dazed. "Do you want one?"

"Sure!" Armin's voice was too cheerful in his own ears.

"Okay. Good. I'm going to..."

From this proximity Armin could see the freckles in his eyes and the way the wine had stained the inside of his lips crimson. Without warning or explaination, Jean lifted his hand and brushed the back of his knuckles against Armin's cheek and walked away. Light headed, Armin was left half hoping no one had noticed, and half hoping everyone had seen.

He was still in a daze when a clearly drunk Eren slammed into him.

"Armin, Armin," he slung his arm around Armin's shoulders, slumping the majority of his body weight onto him, "I have a problem."

Armin hurriedly put an arm around Eren's waist to keep him from pitching forward. "What is it, Eren?"

Eren blinked rapidly at him, trying to focus his vision, "I think Jean has a boner for me. Like a love boner," he clarified.

Armin felt his eyebrows arch sardonically, "Eren, I really don't think—"

"I think he's forgetting himself. The charade has become too real. It's Stockholm Syndrome!"

Armin was hardly able to stifle his mirth. Eren's drunken conviction would have been funny any other day, but it was hilarious when just two hours ago Jean has been gasping against Armin's lips. "Eren—"

"I'm gonna break his heart," Eren said tragically. "I'm gonna do it, Armin, don't think I won't. AND FURTHERMORE," he was practically yelling now and hardly able to stay on his feet, "I'm gonna to enjoy it."

"Wow."

"Where's Jean? I wanna see the look on his face when I rip his heart out of his chest with my bare hands."

As if summoned by his name, Jean appeared, a napkin stacked with cookies balanced between his hands.

"Hey, I didn't know what you wanted so I grabbed a snickerdoodle, a chocolate chip, a sugar cookie, this coconut thing—" He attempted to juggle the cookies between both hands, making sure he'd listed them all.

"Jean," Eren pushed off of Armin, stumbling over his own feet. Jean's head snapped up and he looked at Eren like he hadn't previously noticed he was there. "I need to tell you something."

Eren overbalanced and grabbed Jean's shoulder for support, Jean caught him around the waist dropping the chocolate chip cookie. From approximately two inches away from Jean's face Eren stage whispered, "I just need you to know that I'm not in love with you and I also do not want to bone you."

Jean blinked, his eyebrows arching to new heights. "I, well, um—thanks for letting me know."

Humming in satisfaction Eren wobbled onto his own feet and made his unsteady way away from them. "Armin," he called over his shoulder, "comfort my boyfriend. He's heartbroken."

They watched as he stumbled into an armchair and then a person. They turned to each other in exasperation, but when their gaze caught it transformed into something warmer. Jean cocked his head, the lights from the Christmas tree glittering in his eyes, "Yeah, Armin, I think I need to be comforted."

Armin was genuinely tempted to grab him by the collar, drag him upstairs, and kiss the self-satisfied look off his face. "I could use another glass of wine," he said quickly, "do you want one?"

"Uh, sure," Jean looked down at his hands as if just realizing he was still holding a small mountain of cookies. "Do you still..."

Armin picked up the sugar cookie, it was one of Jean's intricate Christmas trees. He took a bite as he walked away.

 

* * *

 

Armin knew he couldn't sneak away to the attic until at least ten thirty without someone coming to look for him. So he drank. And he drank. Mikasa was camped out in a corner furiously texting. Eren was drunk dancing with a laughing Anna Lucia in the middle of a geriatric dance circle. Grisha had finally been cornered by Candy and Darling who were stroking his hair and giggling. Carla was practically throwing bags of cookies at departing guests.

At some point Armin was pretty sure he had ended up under the mistletoe with Jean, but Eren had been there too. Carla had spotted them and Armin had laughed and shoved Eren, and Jean had done some grand romantic gesture where he had tried to dip Eren that had ended in him accidentally, or maybe not so accidentally, dropping Eren on his back.

It was all a little hazy.

When the last few guests were thanking Carla and Grisha, Armin found himself distracted by how pretty the Christmas tree looked at night. He was poking one of the candy canes experimentally and watching it swing back and forth when Jean appeared next to him. "I think I'm going up to bed," he said casually, voice only a little slurred.

"Are you...inviting me to join you?"

"I dunno, maybe, I guess. It _is_ your room."

Armin grinned at him and together they ambled casually through the remaining few guests and then dashed upstairs to the attic, wheezing with laughter by the time they made it to the ladder.

The attic was warm and dark and Armin's brain was sloshing in warm spiced wine that he was pretty sure must have had some brandy in it. The bed felt like the second nicest thing he had ever touched, and the strip of skin where Jean's sweater had ridden up after he wiggled out of his jeans felt like the nicest. They curled together on the bed, their bare legs tangling together and fell asleep before they could even manage to take off their Christmas sweaters.

 


	6. Day 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the chaos of Carla's Christmas party, Christmas Eve provides a welcome break. Armin and Jean sneak off for an afternoon to themselves. Eren and Mikasa bond and shoot things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god. I don't know what to say other than time fucking flies and to thank you all deeply for your patience. If you have been waiting for this chapter and are still with us, I appreciate you so much!!!! You keep me coming back to this story! If you have picked up this story recently, welcome! I appreciate you too! Hopefully the next update will be much much quicker!

 

Jean was having a good dream. He was warm, his limbs felt heavy and content, and there was someone's body pressed all along his. Lazily, he reached out and his fingers met soft hair. He tugged, and warm lips found his. He groaned, fingers tightening, pulling the other body closer—and it dissolved, the dream flitting back into his subconscious as he became suddenly aware of the rough grain of a pillow against his face and his dry mouth.

Why wasn't he allowed to have nice things?

He kept his eyes squeezed shut, chasing the feeling of the dream, begging for it to come back. If he tried hard enough, he could still imagine the feeling of a body against his and a small, breathy groan near his ear.

_Except_... the sound was too real to have come from a dream. He blinked his eyes open, and the events of the past twenty-four hours came rushing back.

Armin was sleeping on his pillow, their faces hardly four inches apart, his smaller body fitted into Jean's so that their feet and arms tangled together between them. Jean's sleepy heart did a strange little flip. In the light that filtered through the round attic window, Armin was a creature out of dreams. The rumpled quilt became rolling hills and valleys with Armin a dozing Grecian titan among them, the sunlight turning his hair and eyelashes white gold. 

He looked unbelievable. How had Jean never noticed that Armin had a perfect cupids bow in his upper lip? Or that he had such a cute nose? That was a fucking cute nose. He didn't know nasal passages could even _be_ cute. Un-fucking-believable.

Even more unbelievable was how comfortable Armin looked in his arms, how _right._ Jean had never seen his face so relaxed, the inquisitive crease of his forehead smoothed, the tension he always seemed to carry in his jaw vanished. Jean knew he was all odd angles - Marco used to laugh and kiss his nose and tell him _I love your bony-ass elbows, babe_  but hadn't actually argued that Jean said he was about as made for cuddles as an iguana - but somehow Armin fit himself in around them. It was a good look. 

A _really_  good look. A boy could get used to this.

Until Armin's lashed fluttered and Jean prepared to loose his shit.  _Dammit._ He didn't want Armin to wake up and find him staring like a total creeper. That would go over well— _good morning, you kissed me twice and so I thought I'd watch you while you sleep!_  He slammed his eyes shut and slowed his breathing, trying to stay as still as possible. People slept with rigid arms, right? Not awkward at all.

"Jean, I know you're awake."

_Shit._

"Jean," Armin's voice was still sleep-scratchy, but warm? Jean hoped. The mattress creaked as Armin shifted, pulling himself out of their embrace. Jean was stuck for a paralyzing moment wondering if he should keep up the pretense or let his limbs relax, until Armin whispered, "Santa knows if you've been sleeping, Jean. He knows if you're awake."

"Jesus Christ, that's fucking terrifying!" His eyes flew open to find Armin a half inch from his face.

Armin rolled onto his back laughing. "I knew you were awake!"

Jean chuckled weakly because even on his back making fun of him, Armin was still so close and the way his hair fanned around his head was making Jean's brain produce idiotic similes about angels.

Armin pushed up onto his elbow so he was hovering above Jean again. Jean swallowed, cursing his dry mouth. At least Armin hadn't kicked him out of bed yet, and the trail Armin's eyes made from his face down to his lips was making Jean  _extremely_ hopeful. God, this was stupid - there were butterflies in his stomach, he could feel the sleep-sweat slicking hair against his forehead, his nose itched, he was a twenty-three year old man and he was still a wreck because of a crush.

He pushed up onto his elbows to meet Armin nose to nose. A small smile teased in the corners of Armin's perfect bow lips, and he leaned in. Jean's heart beat fast enough to burst, his nose itched again, he leaned in. Armin's eyes fluttered shut as he dipped his head towards Jean's. Jean closed his own eyes, tipped his head up —

A sneeze exploded out of Jean and his head jerked forward, slamming his forehead into Armin's face.

Armin fell backward with a yelp, his hands coming up to cover his nose.

_Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,_ Jean thought hysterically.  _I broke Armin's nose. I fractured his skull. He's probably gonna die. Crush is off. Romance is dead. Getting on the first plane home, going to find a rock to hide under and die._

"Shit, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He tried to scramble to Armin's side and instead managed to tangle himself in the blankets, flailing ineffectually. He finally flailed loose and knelt by Armin where he laid on his back hands still pressed to his nose, blue eyes wide and wet with tears. "Fuck. Armin, I'm _so_ sorry."

"Id's fine," Armin wheezed, a little muffled. "Id's fine, Jean, really."

Jean cursed under his breath and gently pried Armin's hands away from his face to assess the damage. Armin glared but let him, and Jean gasped a relieved breath—there was no blood, nothing was broken. His nose was a bit pink, but it looked like the brunt of the impact had landed under his left eye. That skin was an angrier pink in that area but it was sturdier bone.

"Do you want some ice, or—"

"Jean, seriously, it's fine," Armin grimaced, prodding the pink area with two fingers. "I don't think it was hard enough to bruise."

_Yup, there's the end of that romance,_ Jean thought as they shucked off the holiday sweaters they'd passed out in an pulled on other clothes (Armin had assured him that Carla wouldn't begrudge them one day to wear other clothes while they washed their sweaters). They had been so close to starting something and now it was over before it began.  _R.I.P. my love life. Again._

"Ugh, I could use an Advil and a liter of water," Armin groaned as they made their way downstairs.

Jean winced, guilt eating at him. Armin caught his look and waved him off. "Not from that. I had nearly an entire bottle of wine last night. And then some."

When they made it to the kitchen, Eren and Mikasa were two hunched-over lumps on barstools at the kitchen island, steaming cups of coffee and glasses of water standing sentry in front of their collapsed forms. They were the unmistakable victims of nasty hangovers.

Because Jean was quickly learning that he could never pass up an opportunity to fuck with Eren, he crossed the room to smack him in the back of the head.

"Rough night, buddy?"

"Fuck ooooooff," Eren moaned, lifting a hand to swat miserably at him. Jean sniggered.

"Where's Carla?" Armin asked, appearing at Jean's elbow and passing him a mug of coffee.

"Who caaaares."

Armin arched an eyebrow at the rumpled top of Eren's head. How was his unimpressed face so fucking cute? Jean quickly averted his eyes to the mug of coffee in his hand.

"Grisha?"

"Breakfast burritos," Mikasa mumbled into her folded arms.

Armin rolled his eyes and walked across the kitchen, returning with a bottle of pain killers. "Here. Hopefully enough of the alcohol is out of your system that these won't kill you."

Mikasa's hand emerged to grab the bottle and drag it back under her arms.

"Oh, Armin, Jean! Good to see you're up and on your feet!" Carla sang as she swung into the kitchen, a stack of large books balanced against one hip. She looked as awake and cheerful as ever in a loose long sleeve shirt with the words "ho, ho, ho" printed in an enthusiastic font and her hair in a messy ponytail. Jean was seriously starting to wonder what type of demonic energy she was running off of. "You've probably noticed that two of my little angels need to learn a lesson about moderation."

She cheerfully cuffed Eren on the ear.

Eren let out a garbled swear. "Mooooooom, you said you'd make an exception for last night."

"I did. That doesn't mean I wanted you drinking yourself silly. You don't see Armin and Jean vomiting into anyone's Christmas stockings, do you?Speaking of which, Armin, I'm going to have to run out to get you a new stocking."

Armin wrinkled his nose. Jean was suddenly very glad he had gone to sleep when he did.

"Anyway," Carla slammed the stack of books onto the counter, making Eren and Mikasa clutch their heads, "I dusted these off. Thought you kids might enjoy looking through them."

"Mom, how am I supposed to look at things when I can't even open my eyyyyyyyyyes " Eren whined piteously, which affected literally no one in the room. Except maybe Mikasa, but even she was only inspired enough to pass the bottle of aspirin over. 

"That sounds like your own gosh-darn fault," Carla said cheerfully as the side door opened.

Grisha wandered into the kitchen holding a plastic bag in one hand and the frosty pieces of the phone that Jean had used yesterday in the other. Jean grimaced; the dropped phone had completely slipped his mind after Armin kissed him. At least there didn't seem to be any irreparable damage. Grisha set the phone on the counter with a befuddled expression and looked down into the depths of the plastic bag. "I've got your burritos. Chirizo for Mikasa, bacon for Eren, no meat for Armin, and Jean," he looked up, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a finger, "I got you one with extra sausage because when I asked Eren he insisted you like to eat sausage five times a day. Now, as a doctor I don't think that's particularly heart healthy, but—"

"Thanks, Mr. Jaeger," Jean said quickly, "he was exaggerating."

A weak snicker escaped from the lump that was Eren. Jean took the liberty of smacking him in the head again and was rewarded with a satisfying string of curses.

"Honey, there's one for you in here as well," Grisha said, handing his wife the bag. "Now, I must be headed to the hospital."

"I thought you weren't scheduled today!" Carla cried. 

"You know what they say," Grisha gestured vaguely, looking a little lost without an immediate task at hand, "A hospital always needs its doctors."

He turned and wandered back out of the room. Jean wondered about that man, he really did. Carla watched her husband go, a smile playing across her lips.

"That man, his heart is too big," she sighed fondly before turning back to her children, scolding face back in full force. "Eat up you two, I want you out of my house while I wrap presents today, so you need to be functional human beings for once—not that I don't think you're functional, Mikasa, darling. I'm sure you're perfectly capable even now."

Jean laughed as Eren whined about unfair mothers and Mikasa's hand emerged from under her hair to give Carla a thumbs up. The more time he spent with Carla, the more he liked her. She was savage in her own way.

As they all got down to the business of eating breakfast, Jean caught Armin looking at him thoughtfully and sent him a questioning look in return. Armin just shook his head and unwrapped his breakfast burrito.

The greasy food was restorative. The lingering grossness of last night's wine consumption was absorbed by the sausage and cheese and fluffy eggs. Soon Jean was feeling good enough to inquire about the photo albums Carla had left on the counter. Armin groaned about embarrassing family photos, but all three kids gathered around the scrapbooks with the eagerness of a family with many happy memories to relive. Jean couldn't relate, but he wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to make fun of pubescent Eren. 

The album Armin selected was from when they were fifteen and boy, were those photos _golden_. Eren didn't disappoint: he had been so skinny, a stick figure with perpetually ruffled hair. Mikasa looked as sullen as ever, although less obviously buff and her hair had been nearly waist length for a while. And Armin, god what a precious little awkward baby he had been! He was all round faced and round eyed with a ridiculous bowl cut, even more like the silly knit angel on his sweater. As they leaned against the counter, Armin's elbow pressing a little into his own, Jean couldn't help marveling at what puberty could do for some people. The shaggier hair Armin had now set off the sharp line of his jaw, the deeper blue of his eyes, the more confident slant to his shoulders.

Mmmhmm. Very good. And very distracting when he was supposed to be paying attention to baby books and, probably, gushing over how "cute" his "boyfriend" had been. Barf.

There were class photos, Eren and Mikasa's sports photos, Armin winning academic awards, Eren being squeezed by various relatives, an old man with Armin's blue eyes, Mikasa painting her room dark green, all three posing awkwardly before a school dance. But not all of the memories were happy ones: like the photos of Armin in a suit, his eyes red and his head resting on Eren's shoulder, church pews lining the background, or Mikasa carefully laying lilies around the edge of a grave with two names on it. It occurred to him how fortuitous it was that they had all fallen into each other's lives. Armin was right in some ways, the Jaegers weren't technically his family, but he was also wrong because if the love displayed in Carla's careful collection of each and every one of Armin memories didn't make them family, Jean didn't know what did. He was willing to bet his college tuition that, if any loving scrapbooks had ever been created of his childhood, they had ended abruptly when his father walked out.

Eventually, Carla wandered her way back and announced it was time for them to get out of her house, so they bundled up in their parkas and stepped into the winter wonderland outside the Jaeger's front door. The sun was shinning enough to melt the very top layer of snow which had already refrozen, making a glittering layer of ice over the snow-blanketed lawn. Frost sparkled on the bushes and the trunks of the trees lining the street, and the roofs of the quaint suburban houses had picturesque blobs of snow collected on their eves. Grisha had already shoveled the driveway to get his car out, so their boots crunched on salt as they trooped toward the car.

"Where are we going?" Eren whined as Armin dumped the cup of warm water he had brought with them over the windshield and scraped the ice away.

" _I_ am going to the library," Armin answered. "Anyone who wants to join me is welcome." He spared a glance in Jean's direction which Jean hoped was an invitation.

"Oh, and what am I supposed to do?" Eren kicked at a chunk of snow. "Sit in the car and freeze to death?"

"I know you're practically illiterate," Jean smirked, "but you can't hate libraries that much."

"No, fucktard, I'm not allowed back in the library," Eren made a _duh_  face at him, like Jean was the stupid one for assuming Eren should be allowed within the walls of his local public library.

"How the hell do you get banned from a public library? Were you a baby arsonist?" Jean had seen some shit going down in libraries in his time, he couldn't imagine anything but book burning that could get a _twenty-year-old_ permanently banned. Eren huffed out a defensive noise and yanked open the passenger door to throw himself into shotgun.

Armin met Jean's eyes over the roof of the car. "You have to understand," he said wryly, "at some point in his life Eren has been banned from practically every institution in Shingashina."

"What? How—"

"Don't ask," Mikasa said, completely blank faced as she slid into backseat behind the driver. Jean blinked at her then shook his head and dropped into the seat behind Eren. Even with the heater turned up to full blast the car was slow to warm, and Jean curled into as tight a ball as his long limbs would allow as Armin crunched them out of the driveway. The road was clear as they trundled slowly up it, the driveways of those who could stay at home still blanketed in pristine snow and the cars of those who couldn't avoid work already long gone.

As they drove, Eren listed off all the books he wanted Armin to check out for him so he could "keep his mind sharp during all this time off"—as if any of them believed Eren would willingly use one single moment of his vacation to do anything but _vacation_. The titles started with "Leather from Clay: a History of BDSM in Late American Sculpture" and only got more ridiculous. He had to be making half of them up Jean decided, and also what totally, 100%, verifiability straight boy had a reading list like this?

"If you two want to go shoot things while I'm at the library," Armin said with a forced casualness that made Jean suspicious, "I can drop you off. Jean can come with me, if he wants."

Jean very much _did_ want, but he tried to play it cool. Libraries were cooler than arcades, and he'd probably accept any excuse to hang out with Armin alone.

He was absolutely _boggled_  when, ten minutes later, they rolled up to the front of a bona-fide shooting range and Eren and Mikasa hopped out. Someone was going to _intentionally_  give Eren a firearm? Even for money?

"Tell Hannes hi for me if he's working today!" Arming called out the window as Eren and Mikasa raced each other to the doors. Then, once Jean switched up to the front seat, he flashed Jean a toothy grin that was so like the ones in the photo album but _much_ less innocent.

"Now that we've gotten rid of them, shall we?"

 

* * *

 

The Shingashina library was exactly what Jean had expected, well lit rooms full of cookie cutter furniture with generic textiles and dark green carpet just thick enough to dampen the sound of feet. The stacks were utilitarian metal shelves that looked like they were from the seventies. It was comfortable, but not much to look at.

"So, are we going to find those books for Eren?" Jean asked, as they hung their coats on a rack by the door.

"Ha," Armin intoned joylessly, procuring the list of books Eren had scribbled on the back of a receipt and shoved at him before he left the car. He dropped the list into a trashcan by the help desk. "No one's gullible enough to check out books for Eren on their account."

"Oh," Jean shoved his hands into his pockets, "so..."

"Come on," Armin pinched the excess fabric of Jean's sleeve and used it to drag him forward, "I want to show you something."

As they walked, Armin's fingers wrapped around his arm properly and slid down to his wrist. Something inside Jean's chest thrilled at the casual contact and the fact that Armin had initiated it. Somehow, despite Jean having possibly given him a concussion this morning, Armin was giving him a chance. Maybe it was just a symptom of the concussion, but it meant Jean could still fix this. He was a suave motherfucker, he'd impress the pants off Armin—well, figuratively. Maybe literally later. Baby steps.

Armin led him up a staircase tucked behind the stacks, down a quiet hallway, and through a door with the words "Special Collections" stenciled in neat black lettering.

The Special Collections room was nothing like the rest of the library. Wood paneling and dim lamps made everything feel close and soft. It smelled like old books and cedar. The shelves here were lined with leather bound volumes, some in the type of cardboard boxes used to keep crumbling books together. One of the walls was covered in framed photographs and paintings and the glass paneled cabinets below suggested that there were things in the room that were too valuable to be touched. A few worn wooden chairs lined the two small reading tables and a desk in the corner housed a squat old woman with glasses that were slipping down her nose as she went through a massive stack of crumbling volumes.

"Armin!" She cried, in a quiet and librarianish way, when she saw Armin. "It's been too long!"

"Hi Martha, it's good to see you. I'm just going to show a friend around, if you don't mind."

"Not at all! You know where the gloves are if you want to take anything out." She beamed at them again and returned to the book she was sewing back together.

Jean cocked his head in question and Armin shrugged.

"I volunteered here in high school. It's a pretty decent collection of first printings for a local library." Armin said, as if everyone worked with rare books in their youth. He was so cultured—Jean was badly impressed. He rifled desperately through his memories of every lit class he had taken for something to impress Armin with. Before he could, Armin retrieved two pairs of white cotton gloves from a desk drawer, "Put these on, you can't touch anything without them. But let me do most of the handling."

He led Jean through the first couple rows of shelves, detailing the date ranges the collection included and the literary movements that were most widely represented. The words tumbled so naturally from his lips, and Jean felt his heart sink.  _What does he even see in a philosophy major, grad school wannabe, pizza boy? Well, beside my good hair._

Armin stopped at a sketch of a building hung on the end of one book case. "This sketch is of the original library building," he explained, "they renovated it in the 50's and destroyed most of the original structure."

Jean hummed. It looked like a nice old building, but that didn't seem like a very impressive comment. So he drew on everything he remembered from his art and architecture class freshman year of college and pointed at the peaked feature on the roof, "That's really lovely, a Gothic arch, right?"

Armin cocked his head and Jean had the horrible feeling he was being sized up.

"Come on," Armin said, betraying nothing, "I'll show you some of my favorite texts."

Jean fist bumped himself internally. _Good job remembering shit you never thought would be important._

"This isn't one of the original print run, that would be worth millions," Armin said, gently setting down a small leather bound book and flipping through the browned pages, "it was printed years later but it's still a very valuable copy."

Jean ran the name William Blake through his head and tried to pair it with an era.

"Modernism was such an interesting era for poetry," he said with as much aplomb as he could muster.

He grew more confident as they went on, even daring to make an educated guess about the art nouveau style in Keats's "Endymion."

He was commenting on a lithograph—at least that was the word Armin used—by Picasso when Armin suddenly burst into laughter.

"I'm sorry," Armin wheezed, stifling his laughter behind his wrist just above the hem of the cotton glove. Instinctively Jean glanced towards the reference desk and ducked his head, though the librarian couldn't see them here. Armin, now clutching his stomach as he tried to stifle his giggles, had tears in his eyes. Panic crept up the back of Jean's neck; what had he said wrong? He had gotten everything right so far, he was sure of it. His shoulders tensed, his hackles rising so Armin wouldn't see how much Jean hated being wrong. 

"You don't know anything about art, do you?" Armin asked, finally wheezing in a breath and grinning big and bright at him. He looked so good, so _happy_ , it wasn't fair that Jean couldn't even enjoy it because his mind was shutting down like it always did when he felt like someone was insulting him. It was only because of quite literal years of counseling that Jean didn't immediately blow up, instead only working his jaw in frustration that he didn't know how to defend himself when Armin was right.

"This is a Matisse," Armin laughed, still grinning at him as he ticked off his gloved fingers, "Blake died a good forty years before modernism was even conceived, and this building has never had a Gothic arch on any part of it."

Shame boiled under Jean's skin. He crossed his arm defensively and snapped, "Why didn't you say something! You—you just let me keep saying things!"

Realization broke through the embarrassment and he gaped at Armin, "You liked it didn't you? You enjoyed watching me put my foot in my mouth!"

Armin's smile was cherubic but Jean knew better than to be fooled, Armin was a scheming demon under the angelic facade—it was unfortunately what made him so captivating, but it did nothing to make Jean feel any less embarrassed. Still, somehow, he felt Armin's devilishly charming smile working its way under his prickly hide.

"You know, they have a philosophy section," Armin said, and despite himself, Jean felt his interest perking up and his shoulders loosening. "It's mostly more contemporary philosophers, who I know very little about."

It was an olive branch, and Armin knew him well enough to know it was one he wouldn't say no to. He was still pissy, but he couldn't hide the interested note in his voice when he tried to casually ask, "Here?" 

Armin was smiling knowingly at him again. Damn him. This is what Jean was signing up for, wasn't it? He heaved a melodramatic sigh, but let the embarrassed anger go.

"Take me there," he demanded, because two could play that shady game, "and prepare to be schooled."

"Alright, you big nerd."

It turned out they had an original copy of  _Folie et_ _Déraison_. An original—in French! Jean almost fainted. Not to mention a copy of _Gender Trouble_ annotated in Judith Butler's own hand and dozens of other of books annotated by a number of modern scholars Jean had read papers by. He had to go through them all, because he had _opinions_  on this shit, so Armin pulled up a chair and listed to him rant about critical theories on modernity for what must have been an hour.

A boy who liked books was one thing, but a boy who liked French originals and took him to cozy old libraries and let him talk his ear off? Swipe the fuck right. Jean was still buzzing with it when Armin checked his phone and announced it was time for lunch. They had to drive a few minutes—how long, Jean could not possibly say because he was gushing about philosophers the whole time—and Armin held the door for him to enter a charming blue and white cafe.

"I can't believe they even had some Lacan that must have been a hundred years old, or more," Jean was still saying as they approached the hostess podium, the sweet smell of pastry hitting them like a blanket. "Oh god, I didn't check the copyright—I should have checked the copyright!" 

"Beg your pardon," the woman behind the podium interrupted politely. She was wearing a frilly white apron and using what was definitely a fake British accent. "But we're all booked up."

"I made a reservation," Jean looked at Armin in surprise. "Arlert for two."

When had he had the time? _I didn't see him call ahead._

The girl checked the reservation book and beckoned them to follow her. The place was quaint: rosy wallpaper adorned with decorative plates, lacy table clothes, and a trio of small Christmas trees hung with gold ornaments in the corner. The hostess led them to a table for two in a nook in the back of cafe and took their orders for tea—from a legit _tea menu_.

"Wow. This is fancy." Jean said, as she walked away. He was back to noticing the world around him.

"Best British-style tea house in Shingashina. Also the only one, but that's beside the point."

"I feel like I've been sucked into a Jane Austen novel."

"Isn't it great?" Armin beamed. "I mean their accents are _terrible_ and the decorations are overdone but it's great in its terribleness."

"Like the BBC Pride and Prejudice mini series. Terrible-great."

"Exactly—although I hope you're not slighting Colin Firth when you say that. He is the far superior Mr. Darcy."

"Ugh, really?" Jean wrinkled his nose, "He's a floppy, British dinosaur. Darcy and Elizabeth are both so much hotter in the new movie."

Armin propped an elbow on the table and leaned his chin into his palm. "I don't know, I've always found him charming."

The pastel decor complimented his soft, blue shirt which was just loose enough to show a hint of collar bone. In the diffuse lighting his pale-gold hair looked temptingly touchable. Knowing just how soft it was from first-hand experience was making it much harder for Jean to keep his hands to himself, but he forced himself to focus—this afternoon was proof that Armin wasn't going to pull his punches even if he did maybe still want to kiss Jean. Hopefully.

"You and every other 40 year old who wanted _The Kings Speech_  for best picture," Jean retorted, rolling his eyes.

"Of course you like the hotter Mr. Darcy, you _are_ Mr. Darcy."

"Yeah, so? You'd make a way hotter Elizabeth than the BBC one. Why wouldn't you want to be Keira Knightly? Not, of course," he said, backpedaling when he realized what he'd said, "that I'm calling you a girl."

Armin just lifted an eyebrow and chose that moment to dig a hair tie out of his pocket and gather his hair into a loose ponytail. It was a look Jean had never seen on him, and he _liked it_. Holy hell, he liked it a lot. It accentuated his jaw line and made him look older, cannier—it was god damned distracting.

"I'm not saying that I find you feminine or, like—Elizabeth is just, like, _you_ on a personality level." He squeezed his eyes shut and huffed out a breath. "You're watching me sweat again, aren't you?"

"Maybe." Armin was biting his lip that way Jean could never seem to look away from. "Do you really think I'm like Elizabeth?"

"Did you enjoy watching me stumble through that whole speech without stopping me?"

"Kinda," He cocked his head and a few tendrils of hair slipped out of his ponytail.

"Yeah. You're totally Elizabeth. Too smart for your own good and a little bit of an asshole."

Armin arched one delicate eyebrow, "Oh, Elizabeth is the asshole?"

"Darcy is too—that's what makes them perfect for each other." The hand crocheted lace tablecloth was suddenly very interesting as Jean felt heat creeping up his neck. He couldn't believe he had said that. He might as well have said that he and Armin would be perfect together—there was no way Armin wouldn't pick up on the subtext. It had just been two casual kisses, some sleep cuddling, and a head wound; he shouldn't be saying stuff like that yet. He was going to blow this by looking like a desperate idiot, wasn't he?

"You know," Armin said, still smiling slyly. "Eren is totally Lydia."

Armin's foot nudged his under the table, and warmth bloomed up his leg. Jean jumped on the conversational raft Armin had thrown him with maybe too much enthusiasm, "YES! He totally is. Mikasa is definitely  _not_ Mary or Kitty though. Thank God."

Their tea arrived, a fancy three-tiered thing with scones, finger sandwiches, and bite sized cakes. The tea pot itself was a patterned with delicate pink flowers and the richly embellished cups felt almost undersized in Jean's hand. The tea warmed him, and as they ate he got so caught up in Armin, and the conversation (both distracting in different ways), and the way he tipped his head to the side when he listened (another type of extra distracting) that he wasn't sure how much time passed until Armin excused himself for the bathroom and Jean noticed their plates were clean.

It occurred to Jean, as he fiddled with the sugar spoon and waited for Armin to come back from the bathroom, that this was practically a date. They had done an activity, eaten fancy food, gotten lost in conversation. If Jean offered to pay for Armin's tea then it would fit all the criteria. Something about that made him feel warm inside.

He spotted Armin coming from across the room and smiled at him. "Hey," he said when Armin reached the table, "why don't you let me get this one."

"Don't worry about it," Armin reached for his coat, "I already paid."

Jean stopped short, the bubble of giddy feeling at the prospect of taking Armin on a date bursting. "But—what? When?"

"Just now, up front." His brow furrowed, "Are you upset? You sound upset."

"I," Jean ran a hand through his hair, "sort of wanted to make this a date?"

He hated how much he made it sound like a question. Armin was watching him with his unfathomable blue eyes and Jean was about to tell him to forget it, that he was being silly, when Armin said, "So, it's not a date if I pay for you?"

Jean blinked at him and then realization slapped him in the face. The planned activity, the reservation, the fancy food—Armin had taken him on a date. He had been trying to figure out how to take Armin on a date that he had _already taken Jean on_. Jean was a god damned idiot.

"Oh," he said dumbly, then more emphatically, " _Oh_."

Armin, to his credit, just smiled and let him win the race to the car.

"You slippery motherfucker," Jean said as he dropped into the passenger seat.

Armin lifted a shoulder, looking coy and all too pleased with himself. "I did stage my first coup in kindergarten."

"Remind me never to underestimate you, Arlert."

"You should have learned that lesson a long time ago." Armin was smiling when he said it, though, small and private as he gripped the parking break. Suddenly it felt like the very last moment of a good dream, the delicate membrane between fantasy and reality and Jean didn't want it to be over. He put his hand over Armin's on the brake, fingers curling over and between Armin's own in a way that felt more intimate than holding hands ought to. Armin's eyes when he looked up were wide, blue, and shocked—like it hadn't occurred to him until that moment that Jean could be ass over teakettle for him. Which. Jean needed to address that particular misapprehension, and he needed to do it now.

This time when Jean leaned forward, everything went perfectly. Armin tipped his head and Jean took up the space he left him, and then their lips were soft and warm and pressed together. Armin's hair was still back in the pony tail and, good hair or not, Jean missed the feeling of Armin's hair tickling his face. The way Armin gasped and pushed against him when Jean reached around to pull his hair tie out, not trying to separate them but to somehow get them desperately closer, was very, very interesting. Something to be pursued in depth at a later date.

But now it was Armin's mouth on his, making out like ridiculous teenagers in the parking lot of a cheesy cafe. And that was good too.

 

* * *

 

Apparently the shooting range was not a popular Christmas Eve destination; apart from Hannes, who was ostensibly running the front desk and was in reality taking an extended smoke break in the stock room, Mikasa and Eren had the place to themselves. They picked stalls next to each other and loaded up. Mikasa loved the range. It was cathartic to block out all sound with the heavy headsets and focus all the pent up energy and confusion of the last few days into the bullets that tore through her paper target. Feelings were hard to deal with, other people were confusing, but this—this Mikasa excelled at in a pure and objective way.

Plus, she was always game for friendly competition, and Eren could never resist challenging her to a test of accuracy which he inevitably lost. She emptied her clip into the target, shredding a single perfect circle in the black silhouette of a head, before she knocked on the Plexiglas between them and jerked a thumb at the water cooler in the room. She removed her noise-canceling earmuffs in time to hear the end of Eren's extended swearing at the smattering of bullet holes in the head of his own target, but she knew her brother well enough to know good-natured grumbling. With the synchronization of long experience, they unloaded and reset their stalls identically in seconds. Armin had timed them once.

"So, you never told me about Jean," Mikasa said as they leaned against the wall sipping their paper cups of tepid water. They didn't always talk when they went to the range. Talking hadn't, historically, been something they needed to rely on in order to understand each other. The decision to attend separate colleges in different cities had been one that took months and months of arguments and tears to arrive at, because as much as Eren insisted the distance wouldn't change anything about their relationship, she had known it would mean relying on _talking_  to Eren to know what was happening in his life. Eren was just as bad, if not worse, at communication than she was.

"Yeah, sorry about that." Eren rubbed the back of his neck in the way that meant he was genuinely chagrined, "I should have told you sooner. Just goes to show what you can get on the internet."

 It didn't make a whole lot of sense, though she appreciated that he felt bad about not telling her. She felt her brows tugging together. "I thought you met when you ordered pizza."

"Well, yeah, that was the first time we met. He became my boyfriend," Eren made air-quotes around the word 'boyfriend' and Mikasa felt even more confused, because she had never been good at the slang of her peers but she was almost certain Eren was misusing the gesture, "after Craigslist."

"Eren! I thought Armin was keeping you off that site."

"Ha! Not very well."

Mikasa gave him a disapproving look. Eren was a mess of bad habits that were as endearing as they were frustrating. She crumpled up her cup and underarmed it into the trashcan. "Time for more shooting."

They changed out guns, defaulting to their favorites when they weren't competing. Eren wasn't a bad shot, he just preferred loud and fast. Mikasa didn't need her guns to be fast—one bullet was enough, when it was placed right. The mechanical motions of loading a gun and discharging bullets into the target gave her time to digest their conversation and realize there was something she needed to tell Eren too. Annie wasn't her Jean, wasn't her—she wasn't sure _what_  Annie was to her, what she was to Annie, but she knew what she wanted it to be. Mikasa dealt in facts, in dates, in logistics. She hadn't told Eren about her realization that she never found boys romantically attractive because there was always a girl she found more desirable, because it had been such a slow realization. There hadn't been a particular day when she woke up and thought, "Oh, I'm gay. Time to call Eren". Now that she stood on the other side of that discovery, now that there was someone she wanted someday to introduce to their family like Eren had introduced Jean, it felt like she had robbed Eren of some part of herself that she was desperate to share.

She had to wait until they were both unloading and could take off their earmuffs, and it gave her time to prepare her words.

"I'm sorry I have been distant this past semester," she began. "I have been working through very similar things. I'm glad to know how our parents will react now."

She looked at Eren out of the corner of her eye as he removed the spent casings from his revolver. She paid attention to the minute muscle movements in his face, looking for any signs of surprise or disappointment. None came. Relief flooded through her veins and she set to ejecting the magazine from her own pistol.

"Honestly, I thought Mom would hate Jean, but they're like old chums," Eren admitted, sounding exasperated. Mikasa nodded wisely. Carla's reactions could be unpredictable, especially where her children were involved.

"I hope I have similar success." _Although Annie isn't quite as charming,_ she thought, smiling down at her gun despite herself.

It felt good to bond like this. She hadn't realized how much she had felt like she was hiding something from Eren until she could talk openly. She tugged the chain in her stall until her target came fluttering toward her on the old chain and pulley system. Two perfect, fist-sized circles were blasted out of the head and the heart of the target.

"Dude, you fucking destroyed that dude," Eren said, awed, as he appeared at her shoulder. His own results were more scattered, but not a single shot had gone outside the silhouette. 

She felt sisterly affection welling inside her chest, nearly making her eyes water. She set a hand on his shoulder. "Eren, if you ever want to talk, know that I am always here and I understand."

"Thanks, Armin's been helping me and I think everything's worked out pretty well so far. You want to go get some ice cream?"

Only Eren would think of ice cream at a time like this. Mikasa gave him a playful slug in the shoulder, "Only if you're buying."

"Nah, I borrowed Dad's debit card."

Mikasa shook her head but returned his smile. On second thought, ice cream seemed like the perfect conclusion to their heart to heart.

 

* * *

 

One new snap chat alert.

Mikasa was curled on the couch in front of the crackling fire. Dinner was over and the boys had been roped into doing the dishes so she had a moment alone. She tapped open the snap and was immediately assaulted by an image of a freckled torso and legs, bare aside from an enormous, loopy red bow positioned perfectly to keep the image PG-13. A gift tag hung off the bow with the words "for my little blonde angel" in sloppy cursive.

Mikasa sighed and snapped a picture of her disappointed face with the caption "You sent this to the wrong person."

The reply was instant and came back as a text, meaning Ymir clearly had more to say than could fit in a text bar.

 

**From: Ymir**

**hell no. i worked hard on this shit and i want my captain to be proud of me.**

**From: Mikasa**

**I'm proud of you. Please stop sending me nudes.**

**From: Ymir**

**fine but dont come crying when you change your mind**

 

It was so typically Ymir that it didn't even evoke an eye roll. Anyway, she had a more important topic of conversation to broach.

 

**From: Mikasa**

**I came out to my brother today. I think it went well.**

**From: Ymir**

**congrats girl!!! can i throw you that coming out ball now?**

**From: Mikasa**

**No**

 

Her snap chat popped up another notification and Mikasa sighed, hoping she wasn't going to have to call Ymir and make it clear that she wasn't joking about the no nudes thing. But no, the snap was from Annie.

It looked a lot— _distractingly_ —like Ymir's image. At the angle Annie had held the camera, the image was just her torso in a low cut, simple white sweater. The caption asked "like my new sweater?" but honestly the picture showed more of the skin from Annie's sharp collarbones down to the swell of her breasts and Mikasa was having a lot of trouble caring about what she was wearing at all. It was a good picture, just not of the sweater.

Mikasa felt her heart pounding in her ears. Annie had been snapping her almost constantly and Mikasa was running out of things to send back. She took a quick picture of the mantle piece and the matching stockings—well, except Armin's, which Carla had replaced that afternoon with some red and green striped monstrosity.

"Cute. Guess who barfed in a stocking?" her own caption read. That was interesting right? Maybe it would make Annie laugh.

Mikasa was saved from agonizing over her communications with Annie by the boys' cacophonous entrance into the living room. Jean and Eren seemed to be arguing about whether or not 'Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer' should be interpreted as an AIDS metaphor or a parable about racism, but there wasn't much heat in the argument. They both backed down when, in exasperation, Armin explained that a story that vague could be interpreted to represent any oppressed group but only when put in proper context.

Apparently willing to let Armin have the final say, Eren flopped onto the couch and threw his legs over Mikasa's lap. Jean prodded him in the back until Eren made enough room for him and Armin, and soon they were all piled snuggly on the couch.

"Oh, look how darling you all are." Carla cooed, delivering mugs of hot chocolate. "It's so nice to have the whole family home to celebrate Christmas and keep all of our traditions going—I'm including you in that, Jean."

Eren, Armin, and Mikasa all shared a look along the couch. Carla had this habit of nearly bursting into tears when she started talking about Christmas traditions and togetherness. Mikasa prepared her arsenal of grateful statements and "I love yous" in case it came to that, and Armin looked like he might be doing the same. Jean was still looking at Carla with a somewhat stupefied look on his face, hands clutching his hot chocolate like he wasn't sure what to do with it. He would learn, Mikasa thought. They all had.

"Yeah, yeah, we're all the apple of your eye, the angel on your Christmas tree. Can we start the movie now?" Eren griped.

Carla shook her head, the gesture more adoring than annoyed, and loaded up the DVD player. She flipped off the lights on her way to the love seat with her own cocoa as the opening credits began.

"Wait, we're watching _Gremlins_?" Jean blurted somewhere to Mikasa's right.

"Yeah, so?" Eren hissed back.

" _Gremlins_ is your traditional Christmas movie? A movie about monsters roaming around and killing people with already traumatized pasts involving Christmas?"

"We've watched it every year since I was four," Eren snapped.

"Wow. This explains so much." Someone must have elbowed him because he yelped then fell silent, but Mikasa still thought she caught him mumble something about "twisted psyches."

In reflection, Mikasa thought as the hero exploded a gremlin in the microwave, she supposed it was a weird choice for a holiday movie. But even Carla, who was about as peace and love as a Hallmark card, kept the DVD in a place of honor among the bookshelves of childhood memories, children's trophies, and Mary Berry cookbooks that lined the living room. When Mikasa finished her hot chocolate, she glanced over and noticed that Armin was already asleep, his head lolling onto Jean's shoulder. That wasn't a surprise; Mikasa strongly suspected he hated _Gremlins_ , but for his protection she had never mentioned it to the Jaegers  Grisha returned home at some point and joined his wife, stroking Carla's hair where they were cuddled together on the love seat. It was nice. It didn't even feel strange that Jean was there anymore. Different, like something had shifted just slightly over the years, but not bad. They were different now than they were before his arrival, but she liked it. She had held so jealously tight to the Jaegers for so long, worried she would lose her second family—she had even been resistant to Armin at first—but for the first time she considered the idea that their family was big enough to have space for more people. She thought of Annie, but just thinking about Annie as family made her palms sweat and she forced herself to cut off that train of thought.

Jean drifted off soon after Armin, and they both stayed solidly asleep even when Carla flipped the overhead back on at the end of the movie. Eren stretched, pushing against Jean and hitting Armin in the face with his arm. Jean grumbled and pushed Eren off while Armin swatted at Eren's hand and burrowed further into the couch.

"Up, you two. I'm sure you don't want to sleep on the couch all night." Carla petted Armin's hair maternally before helping him up. He stood, wobbly on his feet while Jean forced himself up, rubbing aggressively at his eyes. Mikasa helped Grisha pick up the discarded cocoa mugs as the two boys began shuffling towards the foyer, Eren being absolutely no help to anyone as he recounted the most epic gremlin-deaths with loud sound effects and lots of jumping off the couch. 

Mikasa looked up as Carla made a delighted oooo-ing noise to find Armin and Jean, eyes still barely open, side-by-side in the doorway and looking confused.

"Looks like you two ran into each other under the _mistletoe_!" Carla sing-songed, hands clasped gleefully to her chest.

"Gross, Mom." Eren moaned, "Don't make Armin kiss Jean, my dick's been in that mouth."

Eren had always been an over-sharer, when he shared anything.

"Eren, language!" Carla scolded. "It's just friendly," she added. "And it's good luck for the coming year. Everyone could use some—"

She trailed off as Jean, who had been rubbing one eye in tired confusion leaned down and pressed his lips to Armin's. For a fraction of a second Armin seemed to respond, pushing up onto his toes. They came together easily, comfortably, and with a lack of pageantry that was so unlike the way Eren kissed Jean. If Mikasa didn't know better she'd guess they'd done it before, and it struck her as unfair that two platonic friends could share such easy familiarity when she was still a flustered mess when it came to Annie.

Jean must have been too asleep to realize it wasn't his boyfriend he was kissing like that, because his eyes went suddenly wide and he stumbled back, much more awake then before. Armin, eyes wide and suddenly terrified, pressed a hand to his mouth and looked urgently around the room and his audience. There was an awkward beat of silence as Armin stared at the room and Jean stared at Armin, and then Carla giggled and Erin whooped.

"Oh, Jean, honey," Carla said as she shooed them good-naturedly out of the doorway, "you don't have to kiss everyone on the lips! I'm sure a kiss on the cheek brings just as much good luck."

"Well, if that's the case—" Eren said, following them out of the room.

"Except you, sweetheart," Carla smiled back at him sweetly, "you still have to give your mommy a proper kiss."

"Mooooooom," Eren whined, but followed his mother and the other boys up the stairs.

Grisha took the empty cups from Mikasa in the kitchen and she left him to load the dishwasher. As Mikasa walked through the living room, the sounds of Carla, Eren, Jean, and Armin settling in overhead and Grisha behind her, she took a quiet moment to look at the Christmas tree. She had always thought of their family as tight knit, a single united front against the world. It was a definition that didn't leave space for outsiders, for intruders, for the rest of the world. She had never considered wanting someone or something more than what she already had in Eren and Armin. But seeing Jean here, she saw her home and her family in a different light. The stockings lining the mantle were signs of a home big enough to fit more, love that was stronger for how far it could stretch.

It was well past midnight, but she pulled out her phone anyways and opened Snapchat. In the glow of the tree, it didn't seem so difficult to take a picture of herself, smile soft, the caption simple: "goodnight."


	7. Days 6 & 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Christmas. They're in the home stretch. What could possibly go wrong now?

On Christmas morning Mikasa got up with the sun to do her favorite four-mile circuit of their neighborhood. The streets were freshly salted so she could work up a sweat without worrying about slipping on ice. As the cold air nipped her face and filled her lungs, she let her mind wander. Things were good. Mikasa wasn't prone to hyperbole or thinking in such black and white terms as good and bad, but she still found herself making a mental tally of how many positive things had happened over this short trip home:

1) She had come out to Eren and he had been supportive.

2) Eren and Jean had worked through that fight they'd had a few days ago.

3) Armin and Jean were clearly becoming friends. (Mikasa was even starting to consider Jean her friend—they'd had fun at the Christmas party.)

4) Grisha had had enough time away from work to watch Gremlins with them last night.

5) Carla was in high spirits.

6) Ymir had texted her a series of smiley faces and indecipherable phrases, which seemed like a good sign.

7) Things seemed to be going well for her and Annie and their confusing non-relationship/friends-with-benefits situation. She even still had a few days to sort her thoughts before Annie would show up—which she reminded herself, was something she needed to inform Carla of. She would tell her over breakfast.

Carla was already in the kitchen when Mikasa returned so Mikasa hurried through a shower and came back down in her Christmas sweater.

"Merry Christmas," she said, just to see the grin it would put on Carla's face. They were, after all, Carla's favorite words.

"Merry Christmas!" Carla beamed turning and revealing that she had attached at least three Christmas-themed felt broaches to her sweater. "Can you do me a favor and go wake the boys? Let's get this day started!"

It had taken Mikasa a few years to learn to cope with the sheer amount of energy Carla exuded on Christmas. Now she was able to soak it all in with a small smile. "Of course. I'll be right back."

She jogged up the stairs. There was the sound of movement in the attic overhead, so Mikasa quickly scaled the ladder, pushed the attic hatch open, and peered into the room. 

The boys were up and, given the sheer amount of naked skin facing her, she probably should have knocked. That was a weird thought—she had never had to knock with Eren before, except for a few months during puberty that had gotten unnecessarily graphic. Thankfully Jean, topless and straddling a still-prone Eren, had left the blankets to pool around his hips so Mikasa couldn’t see much more than his back. He braced one arm on the mattress to lean down and, even out of Mikasa's line of sight, she could hear the wet sounds of kissing.

"Oh, excuse me," she said. "I'll come back later."

She stepped down a rung to close the hatch, but there was a loud yelp of "Mikasa!" followed by a heavy thump.

She froze. That was not Eren's voice.

She peered back over the lip of the trap door. Jean was on the floor in his boxers, rubbing his tail bone, his hair a wild mess. On the bed was Armin, his eyes wide and a hand pressed over the lips Jean had presumably just been kissing. His other hand was scrambling for a sheet, but it was too late to hide the fact that he was clad in only a pair of blue boxer briefs.

Mikasa blinked once, then twice, but her brain refused to process what her eyes were seeing.

"Armin?" she asked flatly, "Where's Eren?"

Armin's shook his head back and forth but the hand pressed against his mouth didn't move.

"Not here," Jean retorted, sounding embarrassed but not overly concerned.

Finally the significance of what she was seeing sank in. Armin and Jean had been in bed together, half naked and kissing. Eren's boyfriend had been straddling Eren's best friend and moving his hips in a way that Mikasa was embarrassed to have witnessed. Jean and Armin were both cheating on Eren,  _in his own home_. 

Eren was going to be heartbroken. Mikasa saw red.

She climbed fully into the room and carefully shut the hatch before turning her gaze back to the two irredeemable monsters in front of her. Deadly calm, she said, "I don't understand."

"It's okay—" Jean started to get to his feet but Mikasa fixed him with a glare and took an intent step toward him.

"You think this is okay?" She could hear the ice in her own voice. "Your boyfriend welcomes you into his family, you repay him with lies, deceit, and  _adultery,_ and that's 'okay'?"

Jean had the audacity to scoff, "This was all Eren's—"

"You don't get to say his name." She was shaking she was so angry.

"Mikasa," Armin finally found his voice, "this is all a misunderstanding."

She whirled on him, her rage flaring. Jean, who had known Eren a paltry few months was one thing, but Armin and Eren had grown up together. They were practically brothers. She had never dreamed that intelligent, loyal Armin could be capable of wounding Eren like this.

"You," she seethed. "You were supposed to be his best friend and you threw away years of friendship for some, some—" her mind raced as she searched for the worst insult she had ever heard anyone (i.e. Ymir) use, "cum guzzling gutter-slut."

She wasn't even entirely sure what that meant, Ymir had made it up one night when she was drunk and angry, but judging by the stunned look on Armin's face it had struck home.

Mikasa didn't have any more time to waste on these two-timers. She needed to tell Eren what she had seen, it would hurt but the sooner he got out of this toxic relationship the better.

"I'm going to find Eren," she flung the hatch back open and left Armin and Jean to their consciences.

She stormed down the ladder, threw open the door of Eren's childhood bedroom, and found Eren hopping on one foot as he attempted to pull a pair of jeans over his Spiderman underwear. She really should start knocking, but she could think about that later. Right now there were more important things to address.

"Eren."

"Dude," Eren said, successfully zipping up his pants, "you look like you're about to rip someone's throat out with your teeth. What's up?"

She crossed the room, grabbed him by the arm, and used her grip to gently encourage him to take a seat on the foot of his bed. He flailed a little and punched her arm, which mostly just hurt his hand. "I need to tell you something important," she said when she had successfully gotten him to a sitting position.

Eren's sweet, trusting eyes clouded with worry, "Alright..."

How was she supposed break this to him? How could Armin ever betray those gentle eyes?

"Have you ever questioned Jean's dedication to you?"

"What dedication? He wouldn't be here if Mom didn't make some bomb rubarb pie," Eren said with a snort.

"Eren, don't joke. I'm serious."

"So am I. I am  _literally_  paying him with Mom's cooking."

"Eren, you—" Mikasa stopped short. Eren's words didn't make sense. A romantic relationship was not an exchange of services for goods and money. "Wait, you're paying him?" she repeated, trying to make sense of the words.

Eren just shrugged and leaned back on his hands. "He needed some sort of compensation. Honestly he should have charged actual money. I wouldn't pretend to be someone's boyfriend for some stupid, vegetable pie. His loss. Idiot."

Mikasa studied Eren's face, his casual posture, and could find no trace of a lie. She trusted Eren implicitly and unconditionally—not to not break things or to act sensibly, but to always be open an honest with her. So, as crazy as his words sounded, Mikasa believed them: Jean wasn't really Eren's boyfriend. But, if Eren was telling the truth now that meant he had been lying to her for the past six days.

The turmoil inside her head suddenly went deadly quiet.

"You're telling me Jean isn't your real boyfriend."

"Duh, he's my Christmas gift to my parents. By brilliant revenge on them not supporting my dreams. I pay Jean in food, he helps me piss them off." He must have finally noticed something less-than-happy in her expression because he paused to huff, "Are you just now getting pissy about that? I told you yesterday!"

 "What do you mean you told me yesterday?" Mikasa asked coldly. Heat pounded in her skull, her fingers clenched at her sides and her anger began to recalibrate. "You didn't tell me anything like that. I can't believe I came out to you and you weren't even honest with me about having a fake boyfriend."

Eren screwed up his face for a nasty retort, then, before he could get the words out he paused, "Okay, back the fuck up. You came OUT to me?" His eyebrows pulled together for a second then his eyes widened. "YOU'RE A LESBIAN?"

"I thought we were going through this together," her voice wavered and she clenched her fists tighter. She was getting emotional whiplash—first anger on Eren's behalf, then anger  _at_  Eren, and now this betrayal.  _Her_   _Eren_ —she wished her words could freeze his already cold heart. "I was even going to tell you about Annie."

Eren's dumb, heartless eyes grew even wider. "Who the fuck is Annie? Is—IS ANNIE YOUR LESBIAN LOVER?"

Mikasa held her ground. She was not going to divulge her secrets to a backstabber. "So, I guess it doesn't matter that I saw Armin and Jean making out then."

"Tell me everything. Who is Annie—where did you—wait, the fuck?"

Mikasa crossed her arms across her chest and returned his gape with a glare. "I accused Armin of being a homewrecker and it's all your fault."

"Hold up, hold up—Armin's cheating on me with my boyfriend?" Eren's voice was climbing in volume again.

So, Eren hadn't known about Jean and Armin. She had that over him.

"Eren, that doesn't even make sense. And if he's your fake boyfriend why do you even care?"

Angry red was creeping down from Eren's ears, his face screwing up in outrage. He was working himself up to an answer when the door swung open and Armin and Jean stepped tentatively into the room. Mercifully, they were both dressed, if haphazardly. Jean had his hands buried in his pockets, his shoulders hunched nearly to his ears, and Armin was fiddling with a strand of hair the way he did when he was anxious. Mikasa felt a twinge of guilt. They'd done nothing wrong, the chagrin in their posture was her fault.

She opened her mouth to apologize, but Eren sprang to his feet. 

"How DARE you walk in here so casually after running around behind my back!" Eren pointed an angry finger at Armin. When that didn't get his point across emphatically enough he pointed his other hand at Jean.

Confusion erased the embarrassment on Armin's face, and Jean's mouth turned into an indignant scowl.

"Wait, what?" Armin stared at Eren, perplexed.

"FUCKING HOMEWRECKERS!" Eren spat.

This was getting out of hand. 

Mikasa clamped hand on Eren's shoulder and pushed until his knees buckled and he collapsed back onto his Batman bedspread with a wheeze of old bed springs. "Eren, you're being a child."

She turned to Armin and Jean, keeping her hand on Eren's shoulder. "Armin, I apologize for earlier--I didn't have enough information to accurately access the situation. Eren has now informed me of the transactional nature of his relationship with Jean, so I apologize for the things I said, but, I am hurt that you didn't tell me that Jean wasn't his real boyfriend. Eren's an idiot, but I expected better from you."

"WHO'S SIDE ARE YOU ON ANYWAY?" Eren tried to shake her off and failed.

"Not yours. I came out to you and you betrayed my trust."

"Came out?" Armin questioned. "Mikasa, are you queer?"

Mikasa nodded.

"Knew it," Jean muttered.

"Mikasa, that's wonderful," Armin crossed the room to give her a hug, awkwardly compensating for the fact that she was still holding Eren down with one hand. "Know that I support you one hundred percent, and if you ever need to talk..."

"Thank you, Armin." She supposed that, were she a crier, Armin's heartfelt reception would have had her tearing up. This was the acceptance she had been so desperate for that she misinterpreted her conversation with Eren. Armin was officially her favorite brother, now and forever.

Their tender moment was shattered as Eren shouted, "WE GAVE YOU COOKIES!" He was leaning to the side, trying to see around her and Armin's bodies to throw dirty looks at Jean. "AND FREE WINE, AND MY MOTHER LOVES YOU!"

Jean huffed and pouted and crossed his arms before giving up and throwing his hands up. "Fine. Asshole." And he sounded so disgusted with Eren that Mikasa wondered how she hadn't noticed how much they apparently disliked each other before this moment. "Since this whole thing is blown anyway, why don't we go tell Carla we were faking?"

The room fell into a sudden dead silence, and as one, all three of them turned to stare at Jean.

A noxious feeling of horror bubbled in Mikasa's gut.

"No," Armin said calmly.

"Absolutely not," Mikasa added.

"ARE YOU FUCKING SUICIDAL?" Eren yelled.

Jean stiffened against the sudden barrage of rejection and crossed his arms back over his ridiculous Christmas sweater. "I don't get it," he sulked, "why is this such a big deal?"

How little he knew. 

"See how Eren's acting right now?" Armin explained, voice just this side of calm. "Can you guess where he gets this from?"

"GET WHAT FROM? MY RIGHTEOUS FURY? I AM COMPLETELY ENTITLED TO—" Mikasa slapped a hand over Eren's mouth and he continued to shout into her palm.

"Imagine this, times a hundred," she explained.

Jean laughed nervously, clearly spooked but their sudden seriousness, "But c'mon guys, Carla loves me."

The sweet summer child. It wasn't a matter of love. It wasn't a matter of being polite, or honest, or any of that. The Jaegers had very big hearts and even bigger emotions. If you broke one and incited the other--well if you survived the fallout you would have to rebuild the world with your barehands to regain their trust. 

Eren fell quiet and Mikasa removed her hand ready to cover his mouth again if he got too loud, but when he spoke it was in a, "She doesn't even love me that much. Trust me. She can  _never_  know."

"The only thing that would make her more murderously angry than someone cheating on her son would be finding out we were all lying to her," Armin said, as usual put their concerns into a cohesive thought.

"Okay," Jean raised his hands in surrender, "then why don't we stage a dramatic break up?"

"ON CHRISTMAS?" Eren was yelling again, "This is her favorite holiday. ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE THAT FROM HER?"

"Fine. Jesus! It was just an idea. What are we supposed to do then?"

There was another beat of silence, this time resigned.

"Nothing," Armin said.

"Absolutely nothing," Mikasa confirmed.

"We stick to the original plan," Eren said seriously. "Mom can never know."

"Okay..." Jean was clearly not convinced.

"You will be my boyfriend." Eren continued, his yelling replaced with a new, quieter intensity. "Forget this screwing with her bullshit. We will convince her we are dangerously in love. We have two days and then we will be back in Trost. Two days of keeping my mother happy and if you manage it I won't CUT OFF YOUR CHEATING DICK BEFORE NEW YEARS." His control dissolved back into shouting.

"Wow," Armin commented.

"Don't think I've forgotten about you, Arlert. Hands off my boyfriend. I'm revoking you're best friend license and giving it to Mikasa."

"I don't want it. You lied to me," Mikasa said.

"FINE! I'LL GIVE IT TO THIS ANNIE CHICK."

Armin, too perceptive for his own good picked up on the detail he wasn't familiar with. "Annie who?"

Mikasa sighed. When had her life become a soap opera? "I'll tell you later. Away from this child." She casually flicked Eren in the ear.

So with the tacit agreement not to let Carla know anything that had just happened, they plastered cheerful looks onto their faces and trooped downstairs.

* * *

 

Compared to the highly structured and scheduled build up to Christmas, Christmas day was always a rambling affair filled with casual gift giving, snacking on left overs from the holiday party and any other appropriately festive activity that caught their interest. Armin wished desperately for the planned itinerary of cookie day. He needed something to distract himself from strangling Eren, staring wistfully at Jean, and counting down the minutes until they left Shingashina so Armin could touch him again.

They sprawled around the living room after breakfast and Carla directed a Santa hat wearing Eren to distribute gifts. It didn't escape Armin's notice that his and Jean's presents remained untouched under the tree well after Eren had distributed large piles to everyone else. But, despite Eren's little passive aggressive gestures, they kept up the Christmas spirit, all enthusiastically exclaiming over their gifts and singing along when Carla burst into spontaneous carols.

When Eren unearthed a tidily wrapped brown paper package with a tag saying "From: Jean" he threw himself dramatically across Jean's lap.

"Oh, sweetheart, I told you you didn't have to get me anything this year. You know, with all that credit card debt you're in." He nuzzled his face against Jean's neck. Jean jumped and Armin was ninety percent sure the romantic gesture was just a cover for Eren to bite him.

"Now boys," Carla scolded good naturedly, her reindeer antlers bobbing as she shook her head, "Christmas morning is family time. Let's keep it PG!"

"Sorry, Mom," Eren smirked, but his eyes sought out Armin across the room.

Armin ripped notches into a piece of discarded wrapping paper until it was a mangled mess. It was ridiculous to feel the acidic gnawing of jealousy in his gut. It two days this joke would be over. Jean would be his, and Eren would be the one stuck having to explain to Carla that he broke up with the boyfriend she adored. Armin was  _not_  going to help him with that one.

Eren tore the paper off his gift, not bothering to take advantage of the convenient, neatly taped seams, and squealed unnecessarily loudly, "The  _Iliad_? Aw, babe, you remembered that I love books where men get repeatedly impaled with spears."

"I sure did," Jean said. His smile was weak and it didn't come close to touching his eyes.

Armin thought about Jean's smile from two nights ago when they were hunched over on the cold concrete step; there had been something giddy and uncontrollable in the way his lips had pulled back, his eyes had crinkled, his cheeks had been flushed with cold. He wanted that smile back.

 _Two days. Two days. Two days_. It became a mantra. Armin had never wished Christmas over so fast.

Present opening stretched well into the afternoon and by the time they were done Armin felt his grip on his sanity slipping. He had agreed to make sure Carla didn't find out about their deception, but he never agreed not to walk across the room and punch Eren. And after spending the majority of the morning putting up with Eren's petty, illogical anger, and watching him flop unnecessarily around in Jean's lap, that option was seeming like a better and better idea.

Before Armin could truly lose it, he was saved by Mikasa dragging them out into the front yard for a good, old fashioned snowball fight. It was supposed to be two on two, but Eren wound up the target of all their snowballs. And although he put up a characteristically enthusiastic fight, he returned inside forty-five minutes later caked in snow.

They took turns defrosting in the house's two showers then reconvened in the wrapping paper littered living room.

Grisha had already opened the jigsaw puzzle Mikasa had given him and was squinting at the pieces strewn across a card table that he had set up in the corner. He had unearthed one of his old collectible radios which sat at his elbow spluttering orchestral Christmas music with a heavy dose of static—which, Armin knew from experience, was how Grisha preferred his music. Carla had the knitting book Armin had given her and a fresh skein of wool in her lap—he was glad to see she'd already found a pattern she liked. Ah, what domestic bliss! If only they knew.

Just like he used to when they were kids, Eren pulled some pillows off the couch and threw them on the rug in front of the fire and flopped down with his copy of the Iliad. Armin, with his dog-eared copy of Pride and Prejudice settled near him. Now that he'd released his pent up frustration in the snowball fight he had started to look at the situation rationally. He didn't want his relationship with Jean to be born out of enmity for his best friend. He needed to clear the air and figure out why Eren really was so upset about the whole thing so that when the next two days were over he wouldn't have to choose between the boy he liked and the boy who's friendship he valued above anyone else's.

Armin waited until Carla had wandered out of the room, saying something about milk and cookies and Grisha looked too consumed with his puzzle to pay attention, then he offered an olive branch:

"Do you like the Iliad so far? It's one of my favorites."

Eren didn't look up from the page. "Funny how that happens."

Armin sent him a quizzical look over the top of his book.

"There's a lot of characters for you to identify with in here aren't there."

Now Eren was talking nonsense. Armin felt very little affinity for the glory and blood lust crazed warriors hefting javelins through each other's chests. Although he did like Hector—poor guy.

"For example," Eren continued, his voice taking on a childish, mocking tone, "Paris, the hot young prince who steals away the equally hot Helen leaving poor, ugly Menelaus bereft."

So Eren wasn't ready to play nice yet. Armin sighed, he could play that game too. "Did you just call yourself ugly? And when did you learn the word bereft?"

Eren made a series of offended noises, "Whatever. Since when have you even been gay?!"

"Well, I'm pretty sure I was born gay."

"And you never saw fit to tell your best friend before stealing his fake boyfriend and ruining his life?" he whispered angrily.

Armin looked at Eren incredulously, searching for a sign that he was pulling his leg. There was no hint of levity in Eren's expression just the reflection of firelight dancing angrily in his eyes. "You didn't know I was gay?" Armin asked, carefully shutting his book and setting it aside.

"No," Eren scoffed like what he was saying wasn't too ridiculous to be true.

"Eren," Armin said slowly, trying to figure out if he had somehow slipped into some nonsensical alternate dimension, "I didn't think I needed to come out to you. I thought it was pretty obvious. I thought you always knew."

"Well, I guess not." Eren was pouting now which meant he was actually hurting. How was he even real?

"I dated Thomas for  _five months_. He spent the night all the time."

He could see Eren digesting his words as if they were indeed new information. His face screwed up in confusion, or maybe it was disgust. "You were dating Thomas?  _You had sex with Thomas?_ " His voice was practically jumping octaves now.

Armin, cheeks blazing, glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one in the room had overheard: Grisha was still toodling along with his puzzle, lost to a crackling rendition of "Good King Wenceslas". He wasn't overly secretive about his sex life but he didn't need Eren shouting about it during family time.

"Yes, I had sex with Thomas. Multiple times."

"I thought you were playing video games, and the whole time you were touching each other's butts!"

Armin's mouth hung open but words wouldn't come out. How was he supposed to reason with that level of stupidity? Eren stared back at him looking crazed, his eyes too wide and his hair rumpled from the shower, his book forgotten on the carpet.

"You can't tell the difference between sex sounds and video games?" An incredulous voice asked. Armin jumped, but it was just Jean. Looking soft and touchable in a green Henley, his hair damp from his shower.

"Shut up, Helen of Troy," Eren sniped. "I am a very intense video game player."

"You mean virgin?" Jean parried.

"I am not!" Eren's voice cracked on the 'not'. "I've had sex so much. So much sex it would make your head explode!"

As always, Carla chose the worst possible moment to sweep into the room. She placed a tray of cookies on the coffee table and fixed them with a reproving look. "What did I say about keeping things PG, boys!"

Armin wanted to face palm and Eren's ears were turning red, but all three of them plastered over-wide smiles on their faces.

"Oh, we were just joking about a friend!" Armin said before things could get uncomfortable.

"I won't pretend to know what you boys get up to!" She flashed them a toothy smile—it was Christmas and it would take a lot more than a few lewd comments to make Carla actually angry with them. "Now, who wants some cookies and tea? It's started to snow again so I thought we could all use something warm."

A few hours later it became clear that it was not going to be a little, light snowfall. As snow crept inch by inch up the outside of the windows, Armin considered the very real possibility that Maria Pass might close; if it did, they would be stuck in Shingashina until it cleared.

They were so close to leaving Armin could taste it. If the snow could just let up for thirty-six hours, they would be on their way back to Trost and this headache would be over.

Eren's sniping didn't do anything to ease Armin's nerves, especially when, having overheard Eren accuse Jean of being Helen of Troy, Carla asked who this Helen girl was that Eren seemed to dislike so. It was hardly a close call, but it made Armin wish that they could leave that evening without hurting Carla's feelings.

Eren informed Armin that he would be sleeping in Eren's room with Eren that night. All Armin wanted was to curl up in bed next to Jean, but he accepted Eren's command anyway. At least for once he wouldn't have to worry about Carla barging in in morning. It would be much easier to explain why Eren had fallen asleep in the room Armin was supposed to be sleeping in if it came to it.

When he'd had enough and Eren and Carla were absorbed in an endless two-person Uno game, Armin plodded up the stairs to get ready for bed. Just last night he'd been excited to make this journey, Jean trailing behind him with a dopey grin, the warm, romantic feeling of their first date still hanging in the air between them. Two more days, if the weather would only let up.

He reached the landing and the bathroom door swung open revealing Jean dressed for bed in those goddamn low slung sweats. Jean jumped, but as soon as he realized it was Armin he relaxed against the wall, crossing his arms across his bare chest. His secretive smile did things to Armin, as did the wayward smudge of toothpaste on his chin that he'd clearly missed. Armin double checked that no one had followed him upstairs. They were alone. The moment was there for them to steal.

"So it looks like I got Eren the most famous tale of adultery in the western world," Jean said causal as anything, "Funny thing is, I don't actually remember getting him a gift."

Armin laughed, but it sounded bitter in his own ears, "Carla would get suspicious if the lovebirds didn't exchange gifts."

"So, I assume you picked out my gift too."

It was a volume of the collected works of Arthur Conan Doyle that Armin had found for a steal in the over-full shelves of a used book store. It was an old cloth-bound hardback emblazoned with red and gold filigree up the spine. He hadn't been able to resist although he already owned a perfectly respectable collection of Arthur Conan Doyle's works printed in the 1950's. He rationalized the purchase by promising he'd give it as a gift. He was glad he had given it to Jean. He nodded.

"I really like it."

Something warm settled in Armin's stomach. He closed the space between them and used his thumb to remove a smudge of toothpaste from Jean's chin. "I got it before we met so I only had the Craigslist ad to go by..."

"And you didn't get me a straight jacket? That ad is the craziest shit I have ever done. I was definitely drunk when I made it... and a little lonely and bored. Sasha and Connie are much more persuasive under those circumstances."

"Having regrets? Is it because Carla hasn't made rubarb pie yet?" He tipped his chin up toward Jean, giving him a teasing smile. "Because that's still to come."

Jean tilted his head, seriously considering the question as his eyes roamed over Armin's face in a way that made Armin feel suddenly warm. "Regrets? Well, I've certainly learned my lesson about meeting men off the internet. Their cute, tangentially related friends, however..."

The moment was shattered by a clatter followed by a series of loud thumps—Eren barging up the staircase with his usual grace and poise.

"Oh excuse me," he sneered as he crested the top of the stairs and immediately forced himself between them. He was wearing the expression he always had when Grisha tried to make him smell fancy cheese. "I seem to have stumbled upon the secret homewrecker hideaway."

"We are in the hallway in front of the bathroom," Jean snapped in exasperation. His body language had completely changed, his shoulders were rigid, his crossed arms were a shield between him and Eren.

"So you're cock-holding me in hallways now!"

"That's not how that word is pronounced."

Eren rolled his eyes dramatically and shoved Jean in the shoulder, "Shut up, Helen." With a haughty, and completely uncalled for, huff he shouldered past them to the bathroom and slammed the door.

Armin sent Jean a world weary look, but then Jean's lips twitched and Armin couldn't help feeling warmth kindling back to life in his chest.

"Merry Christmas, by the way," Jean offered.

Armin checked over his shoulder and, taking a calculated risk, pressed a kiss to Jean's cheek. Jean blushed, which was endearing in context of the not so chaste activities they had almost been up to that morning. "Merry Christmas, Jean."

Eren chose that moment to belt Carrie Underwood from inside the bathroom, "MAYBE NEXT TIME HE'LL THINK BEFORE HE CHEATS."

They shared one last exasperated look and parted ways, Jean to his lonely tower and Armin to the prison of Eren's room. He comforted himself with thoughts of all the sturdy surfaces in his Trost apartment and how many of them he could make out with Jean on to annoy Eren.

 

* * *

 

They had done it.

It was the final dinner. In the morning they would pile into Armin's car and charter a course for Trost. The weather service was still dithering about closing the Mt. Maria Pass so it was now or never. After Carla's chicken enchiladas, rubarb pie, and a few hours of sleep, of course.

Armin volunteered to set the table because he didn't currently trust that Eren was stable enough to hold knives without inflicting bodily or structural harm to the Jaeger home and its inhabitants. He collected cutlery from the drawer in the kitchen while Jean and Eren stood by the sink pointedly glaring in opposite directions. Their rivalry had finally gone so far that they couldn't make eye contact without someone taking a swing, but standing silently in each other's presence was still preferable to playing nice in the dining room where Carla and Grisha were waiting.

"You know, since I started reading The Iliad, I've become very interested in poetry," Eren mused. "I've been thinking of writing my own. Anyone have any suggestions for a word that rhymes with whore?"

"Eren, give it a rest," Mikasa warned as she picked up the salad bowl and carried it into the dinning room.

"Give it a rest!" Eren was already building steam. "Maybe I'd give it a rest if my best friend hadn't decided to ride Jean like a trick pony."

Armin sighed, trying and failing to tune Eren out as he debated if he needed to lay out spoons. 

"My feelings are totally justified," Eren sulked, "People start wars over stuff like this."

Jean snorted, and Armin blew out his cheeks in exasperation. "What do you want me to say, Eren? I made out with Jean and fully intend on doing it again. It's not like he's even—"

There was a loud, tinkling crash. Armin's head jerked up in alarm. Carla stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the dinning room. Red wine stained the white tiles in front of her, shards of glass were scattered outward from the blast zone. Her face was frozen in a mask of the smile that she must have been wearing as she stepped into the kitchen.

"What did I just hear?"

Unnerved, Armin quickly reviewed the words he had just said. Had he just said Jean wasn't Eren's real boyfriend in front of Carla? No, that part had never left his lips, but what he had said—oh God. Horror gripped Armin's throat with icy fingers. His mouth opened but the words—his clever explanations and earnest persuasion—didn't come to his rescue.

Surprisingly, it was Eren who collected his wits first, "Oh, we were just joking about a friend!" He laughed raggedly as if to demonstrate.

Maybe it would have worked if Eren's voice wasn't tight with insincerity. Maybe it would have worked if Eren hadn't just parroted the same excuse Armin had come up with the day before. But as it was, Armin could see Carla's face harden. Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, scanning between the three of them with such keen, biting perception that Armin was certain she could see through to the real deception.

They had gotten away with so much. They were so close to this mess being over. Just tomorrow...

"Bullshit," the word was clipped, matter-of-fact, and earth-shattering. Armin had never heard Carla swear, and she had raised Eren. This was bad. This was very bad. Armin's gaze was stuck in the middle distance, his eyes wouldn't focus and a panicked voice had started keening in his head:  _We're backed into a corner; if we don't tell Carla the truth she is going to hate me. If we tell Carla the truth she is going to hate all of us. Which offense will she forgive? Am I fucked no matter what?_

"Carla—" Jean tried valiantly from somewhere to his left.

"Go pack." Her tone brooked no room for protest. Armin knew he should be explaining, back-peddling, something, anything. But nothing he said right now would sound believable, especially because he couldn't deny his involvement with Jean outright, not if he wanted to start dating him. The situation was dangerously out of his hands. Maybe Eren would have better luck talking her down, but the set of Carla's jaw and the fiery look in her eyes made him think that nothing was going to appease her anger until she was no longer in defensive, angry momma bear mode. "You two have a long drive tomorrow. It's best that you get a good night's sleep."

Armin didn't know what else to do so he left the kitchen. He caught a glimpse of Jean's face—he looked lost, unable to compete with the maternal rage radiating off Carla. He would be fine, Armin told himself, in the long run Carla's approval or disapproval probably wouldn't affect Jean's life much.

Armin's feet carried him on autopilot up the stairs and into Eren's room where he stood numbly, staring vaguely in the direction of the window. He was fucked. This whole mess was suddenly so tangled that he couldn't see a way out—not without casualties.

The door opened behind him and he turned to see Eren looking frantic and wide-eyed

"God, Eren—" he groaned, not sure what else to say.

Eren's eyes were wet, tears threatened to well over, "I fucked it up."

Why did Eren get to be the one who was upset about this? It was his lousy choices that had put all of this in motion, his fault they couldn't tell Carla the truth, his fault the only parental figures Armin had left probably hated him now.

"Fuck," Eren punched his model of the Millenium Falcon and Legos flew across the room like shrapnel. "Fuck."

Armin could see Eren's frustration and guilt bubbling over and did nothing.

"What do I tell her?"

"The truth."

"No," Eren said quickly, eye bulging even wider.

Armin was so tired, why did he go along with Eren's plans? Why did he always end up taking the fall? "I don't know, Eren. Tell her you already had plans to break up with him."

"I really don't think that's going to make her any less upset."

"I think we're past that point, Eren." Anger was seeping into his voice now, turning his words as hot as a metal brand, "You got us all into this mess and you have been acting like a baby." The volume of his voice was rising and he couldn't stop it. "So grow up and tell her whatever will make her stop hating me."

Eren flinched away from Armin, a pained look contorting his face. He let out a shaky exhale and gazed down at the small scrapes the Legos had left on his knuckles. "I'm sorry."

"I don't know if sorry is enough," Armin could see the words scald Eren but he didn't take them back. He wasn't going to let Eren off easy this time.

"Look," Eren's voice was fraying, frantic, "it's only twelve hours 'til we leave then we can let her cool off while we're far away. And I'll make up something that gets you off the hook. She won't stay mad at you, you're like one of her kids."

Armin's heart twisted. It was so easy for Eren to say. He was Carla's child, the only person Carla would forgive endlessly. Armin knew that Carla loved him too, she wouldn't have been so good to him for all these years if she didn't, but he wasn't her child. He was an orphan, his place in this house could be revoked far easier than Eren's.

But what could they do? Eren's not-plan was really their only reasonable option. It seemed like the only recourse that wouldn't expose the entire ruse and make Carla more upset. He let out a long breath and flopped down on the bed. Suddenly he was too tired to be angry at his best friend. Eren landed with an  _oof_  on his stomach beside him, and from the hang dog expression he sent at Armin, he felt the same. As many years as had passed since Eren and Armin were children in this house, when they would retreat to this room to wait out Carla's anger at them breaking her vases or ruining the neighbor's party, some things never changed. Their problems were bigger, more explosive, but it was still just them.

There was a knock at the door, and it felt only right that it should be Mikasa. She was part of them too, always there to throw her lot in with theirs when they were in trouble.

Except this time, she looked at them with a blank, unreadable expression and said the only four words that could possibly make this situation worse.

"They closed the pass."

 

* * *

 

Jean wasn't in the attic and neither were his things. Armin took the stairs down two at a time. He needed to break the news gently, to let Jean know that he was stuck in his shitty situation for a little longer but that as soon as they were back in Trost Armin would make it up to him and see that Eren did too.

He skidded at the bottom of the stairs, his socked feet sliding on the tile in the foyer.

"Where are you going?" Armin whirled around and locked eyes with Carla. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen. Arms crossed over her cheerful reindeer apron that now felt conspicuously out of place. "Not to see the man you back-stabbed Eren over, I would hope." Her words were still too precise. It was the voice she had used the very few times he and Eren had ever really been in trouble.  _Real_  trouble. It made him feel like a chastised teenager again.

"I was just going to—"

"I think you should go up to bed, Armin."

Her eyes bored into Armin's. They were the exact shade of green of Eren's and in them Armin could see the same ferocity that Eren had exhibited when he had stood up to Armin's bullies when they were kids. He couldn't fault her. She thought she was doing right by her son and until Eren was able to explain otherwise, Armin couldn't do anything. Armin's shoulder's sagged and he told himself it didn't hurt, but as he retreated upstairs his hands shook.

He deputized Mikasa to find Jean and break the news about the pass. She promised, with a too-tight squeeze of his hand, that she would do it gently. Then all that was left for Armin to do was brush his teeth and curl silently on one half of Eren's twin bed, waiting hopelessly for the solitude of sleep.

Sometime around ten, there was a gentle knock at the door and light cracked over their bed. Carla's muffled voice aked Eren to come out and talk to her and Armin schooled his body into total stillness as Eren jostled his way out into the hall. He didnt want to hear their voices in the hall, but the walls were thin.

"Oh, honey. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Mom—" Eren's voice cracked. He wasn't that good of an actor so he must have actually been crying.

"Oh, honey."

There was an extended moment of silence and then, "Just," Eren's voice trembled, "I hope I didn't ruin your Christmas."

"Oh, Eren." Carla's voice was less than steady. "Everything's going to end up alright."

Armin rolled over and pulled a pillow over his head.

 

 


	8. Day 8 & 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes a heart-to-heart with your sort of boyfriend's sort of mother can be literally breath taking. In this final chapter, Jean goes to brunch, Armin worries, Eren is a master of deflection, and Mikasa forgets one crucial detail.

Armin had spent hundreds of mornings in this attic alone and only four mornings with Jean—yet when he tiptoed up the ladder the next morning, and stood in the circle of chilly morning light coming in from the window, the room felt wrong. The bed was too big. The air too still without someone else's breathing. It was even lonely to dig through his bag and change his underwear without worrying about facing a corner. He felt vaguely hungover. At least, with the added perspective of a decent night's sleep, it no longer felt like the whole world was crumbling, but he was not looking forward to all the uncomfortable conversations he was going to have to take part in before this mess was resolved.

It was still relatively early so he tip-toed downstairs, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jean sprawled on the couch to calm his aching heart, but all he found was a nest of blankets. His brow furrowed and he continued picking his way through the quiet house.

In the kitchen, he found a note in Carla's loopy scrawl:

_Dear Eren and Mikasa_ — _Jean and I are spending some quality time together this morning! Cereal is in the cupboard, muffins on the counter! Don't worry about waiting for us!_

_-Love, Mom_

There was something sinister about the heart-dotted exclamation points. He knew Carla would never _intentionally_ traumatize Jean, but the poor guy already had a host of mommy issues and Carla was known for going a bit intense on the "I'm so disappointed" part of the lecture before she came around to the "Here's how were going to fix the problem" bit. Armin still shuddered remembering the time she caught him and Eren with an eighth of weed. They had been 18, his grandfather had just passed, and Carla had taken full lesson-teaching responsibilities on herself; they both been in tears fifteen minutes into the lecture. 

Armin read the note again and told himself that it didn't sting that his name was not included in the salutation.

Feeling helpless, he grabbed a blueberry muffin. He took a bite and immediately went to spit it into the trash. Over salted—Carla's cooking was always an extension of her mood. He made himself a bowl of cereal, started a pot of coffee, and sat at the kitchen table to wait. Mikasa returned from her run with the morning paper, and he poured her a cup of coffee while she jogged upstairs to shower. He picked up the paper to read, and ended up staring at the wisps of steam curling off the coffee instead.

He was still staring aimlessly into space when Eren trampled down stairs and into the kitchen.

"Yo, where's Mom?"

Armin looked at him over the top of the paper.

"Spending 'quality time' with your 'boyfriend'. There's a note on the counter."

Eren stole Mikasa's coffee, took a large gulp, and grimaced because it didn't have his requisite three teaspoons of sugar, "Why?"

Armin turned the page and finally returned his attention to the paper, tired of looking at Eren's face. "I don't know exactly, but they've been gone for forty-five minutes at least."

"So my mom kidnapped Jean at ass o'clock in the morning and left a creepy note?"

"Seems like it."

Clearly unperturbed, Eren set about filling a massive bowl with Christmas themed Trix.

Armin pulled out his phone. 9:15. He had hoped to hear something by now. He typed out a quick text to Jean.

**To: Jean**

**Are you okay? Should we send in the cavalry?**

He set his phone on the table screen-up so he could see when Jean responded and returned to a boring article about the post-Christmas boom in snow tire sales.

After a few minutes he had to accept that the snow tire industry was not going to hold his attention and put down the paper.

"Eren," the boy across from him looked up, wiping a dribble of milk off his chin, "when they come back, maybe you can try being nice to Jean for just a little while. You know how your mother can get when she decides to have a one-on-one."

Eren rolled his eyes and shoved a spoonful of cereal in his mouth while he said, "Then maybe he shouldn't have cheated on me."

"Stop saying that," Armin snapped, unable to hold back his exasperation. "You weren't ever really dating! I don't understand why you're so upset about this!"

"Okay, so maybe he didn't technically _cheat_ , but he broke our agreement!" Eren stabbed his spoon angrily into his cereal so that it scraped against the bottom of the bowl. "He was supposed to be here to help me get back at my parents, and then he seduced them just like he seduced you! You think my mom would even bother lecturing him if he didn't have her wrapped around his gross knobby fingers?"

So this really was all because Eren couldn't stand not being the center of attention. Armin's fingers tightened on the paper, crumbling the edges. His eyes darted back to his still dark phone screen. Jean was out there paying for Eren's selfishness. Armin's pulse pounded in his ears. "It wasn't Jean who blew our cover. _We_ were the ones Carla overheard! Stop blaming everyone else for how badly this riddiculous plan failed, and stop treating me like I'm your dissapointing little brother." His voice was trembling, but the words kept tumbling out of his mouth, each more loaded than the last. "Jean didn't seduce anyone. Maybe we all just appreciate Jean because he's a mature adult who takes responsibility for his actions."

Eren gaped at him, sputtering, but Armin didn't give Eren the privilege of responding. He threw down the paper, grabbed his phone, and stormed out of the room.

He called Jean from the living room. A tinny, generic ring tone blared from the vicinity of the couch and Armin dug through the tangle of blankets to discover that Jean had left behind his shitty, first gen smart phone. He stared down at the two phones in his hands until Jean's voice—"Hey, this is Jean, leave me a message or something"—mumbled out of his phone speaker. If Jean didn't have his phone he was cut off from calling for help. Armin couldn't tell him it was going to be okay. Jean couldn't ask Armin to pick him up. Carla wasn't going to murder him, or force him onto the next departing train, but that didnt mean Armin wasnt worried they'd get Jean back in the middle of a panic attack. 

Mikasa's light footfalls pounded down the stairs and, feeling desperate, Armin moved to the doorway to intercept her in the foyer.

"Did you see Carla leave this morning?"

She paused, running her fingers through her damp hair. "She was getting her shoes on when I left around 8:00. Why?"

"She took Jean with her."

"Oh." A hint of concern lined Mikasa's usually expressionless brows. "I hope she isn't too hard on him."

"Why do you guys even care about him so much? He's such a dick." Eren appeared to lean against the kitchen door frame with another full bowl of cereal.

Angry words were already bubbling acidicly in the back of Armin's throat, but Mikasa linked arms with him before he could start yelling at Eren again. "Let's do the crossword."

 

* * *

 

 

Armin stared down at the tangle of black and white boxes, half of them filled with Mikasa's militantly precise lettering.

"Eight letters. Victim of someone else's passion."

Last time he looked at his phone it was 10:04. How long ago had that been? Ten, fifteen minutes maybe? He should check again.

10:06

"Armin."

"Huh?" Mikasa was watching him, most likely judging him behind her stoic mask.

"Eight letters. Victim of someone else's passion."

"Oh, um, did you try sacrifice?"

"That's ten letters," Mikasa said bluntly. She was very serious about her crossword puzzles. "Casualty fits but I don't know about the passion part and I think the second letter is supposed to be a 'U.'"

"Wait, a 'U.'" Armin looked down at the puzzle, the cogs in his mind clicking. "Jesus Christ, it's cuckhold." He buried his face in his palms. Even the crossword was conspiring to accuse him of a crime he didn't commit.

"Armin?"

He peeked through his fingers at Mikasa's inscrutable expression. "What?"

"Are you okay?"

He exhaled, dropping his hands and collapsing back into the couch. "Can you just call Carla and make sure she didn't dump Jean by the side of the highway somewhere?"

Mikasa pulled out her phone, tapped at it for a few seconds, and put it to her ear. Armin dropped his head back onto the back of the couch and gazed at the ceiling so he wouldn't stare at her, waiting for Carla to answer. After a minute he heard something drop to the couch.

"She didn't pick up."

Armin closed his eyes.

"He's fine. Stop worrying!" Eren griped from where he had been pursuing his copy of The Iliad by the fire.

"What are they doing though? Its been too long for them to have just gone to breakfast. And Carla always answers her phone."

"Maybe she just doesn't want to hear from you!"

"Whose fault is that?" A headache was building at the point directly between Armin's eyebrows.

Eren spluttered, unable to deny an objective fact. "Fine, I'll call her," he announced. "She'll answer and everything will be fine. She won't have harmed your precious Jean."

Armin cracked an eye open to see Eren jabbing angrily at his phone. He put the phone to his ear. After a few seconds he jerked it away and glared at it like something insulting had whispered to him out of the speaker. "Hey! What the fuck, she didn't answer!"

"Carla always has her phone on," Mikasa stated. "And it's ringing before it goes to voicemail so the battery hasn't died."

An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of Armin's stomach. Not the gnawing anxiety that Carla was scaring Jean off, something more sickly and urgent. What if something was actually wrong? The fear bubbled up his throat, combining with his anger and frustration and making him want to tear out his own hair.

Eren was whining again. "Seriously though, what the fuck? Why isn't she answering? Why is she ignoring me? She cant ignore me, I'm her son!

Armin didn't realize he was holding on by a thread until it snapped. "Can't you just shut up for one fucking minute?" The words left his mouth like bullets. Something subconscious and venomous had taken over and the words came quickly and easily. "We have bigger problems to worry about, like your mother emotionally ruining the only boy I've liked since I finally stopped pity-fucking Thomas on a regular basis." He was on his feet but he didn't remember deciding to stand. "I genuinely like Jean. We get along really well, and if you can't respect that then we need to reevaluate our friendship because I have put so much effort into this godawful scheme to make it work and make you happy, but the minute I find something that makes me happy you do nothing but sabotage it and act butthurt that you and your problems aren't the center of attention. And you aren't even considering the fact that something could actually be wrong. Your mom never ignores our calls—is your head so far up your ass that you aren't concerned about why she isn't answering?" Because Armin had been through this before. You never expected to lose a parent until suddenly they were late and they weren't answering your baby sitter's calls and then—no, he couldn't let his thoughts go there. That was a dangerous place. Carla and Jean were fine, physically at least, until he had evidence otherwise. He was shaking again, the rage and anxiety that was pulsing through him sending hot tears down his cheeks and squeezing at his throat until he felt the need to gasp for breath. He stood in the middle of the living room, not bothering to hide any of the hurt, and anger, and fear as he leveled his best friend with a look that felt like hurling daggers. "I just wish my happiness was as important to you as yours is to me."

Then he buried his face in his hands and cried.

 

* * *

 

 

**Two Hours Earlier**

 

Jean slipped back into consciousness in groggy confusion, not sure why he was waking up when his head still felt heavy and sleepy. He cracked his eyes open and nearly peed his pants. Carla was hovering over him, a too-wide grin plastered over her face.

"Good morning, Jean." She said brightly.

He shrunk back into the couch cushions, hoping he didn't look like a scared five year old as he clutched the quilt under his chin. "...good morning..."

Carla straightened up, planted her hands on her hips, and began chattering at a pace Jean's tired and startled brain could hardly process. "I know you were planning on leaving this morning, but in light of the abysmal weather we have a little extra time together. I thought we could spent some quality time."

He blinked up at her, feeling at a tactical disadvantage as she loomed above him, waiting for him to respond and _still smiling_. "Is it even eight o'clock?" he finally managed. The light outside the windows was still a weak gray. What could she possibly want with him so early. _Oh God_ , his sleep paranoid mind supplied, _she wouldn't murder me would she?_

"I brought you some clothes. No need to go back up to Armin's room."

"Are we going to get everyone else?" Jean suggested desperately.

"I thought it could just be you and me. It's time we have a heart to heart."

_Oh Jesus, she is going to murder me. Armin, if I die today I hope you know me well enough to tell my mother I'm sorry and I love her._

He didn't seem to have much of a choice, so he rolled out of his tangle of blankets and accepted the pile of clothes Carla presented him. Ten minutes later and he was being cheerfully steamrolled into Carla's minivan and driven through the still icy streets. The diner Carla took him to felt like stepping into a time warp: brown pleather booths, laminant tables, waiters and waitresses in waist aprons that fastened with giant safety pins.

A waitress who seemed to know Carla well lead them to a quaint booth by the windows which were still painted with bunches of holly. Jean buried his face in his menu. Carla had stuck to small talk so far, prattling about how awful the weather was and how nice it was to raise her children in Shingashina, and the bland inanities were worse than shouting—every minute she put off tearing into him, Jean felt his anxiety levels rising.

He glanced at the first item on the menu—an omlette with ham, cheese, and green onions—and didn't bother looking at the rest of the menu. He probably wouldn't be able to taste anything anyway.

"Hi, my name is Daz and I'll be your server today." A bland faced young man smiled at them from the end of their table. "Can I get you started with some coffee, or—"

"Actually I'm ready to order," Jean said hurriedly. When Carla didn't protest he continued. "I'll have the Sunrise Omlete."

"And I'll take Breakfast on the Beach."

Daz scribbled down their orders on a tiny notepad and took their menus with a vague smile—nearly dropping both of them.

"So," Jean could hear the shift in Carla's voice and he distracted himself by poking through the small dish of sugar packets. "Infidelity. I've always wondered what brings someone to to be unfaithful to the people who love them unconditionally. I've heard all the usual arguments animals aren't monogamous, why should we be? But you know, I've always liked to think that there are certain qualities that set us apart from animals."

Jean pushed the sugar dish away in favor of massaging his temples. God, she had started so heavy. At this point he might as well just tell her, get whatever little betrayed episode she'd have out of the way and move on with his life. "Carla—"

"Loyalty, the desire to make and keep promises, fidelity, the ability to imagine the world in someone elses shoes and anticipate the way our actions will effect them..."

"We're not—"

"—those are the qualities that are most admirable in humans, don't you think?"

"Well, I—"

"But I suppose the other side of that coin is we are also capable of lies and deceit."

Jean forfeited. It was clear he wasn't going to get a word in edgewise so he might as well just weather the storm.

Their was a momentary reprieve while Carla smiled at Daz-the-waiter as he trundled over to the table and set their plates in front of them. He nearly slid Carla's omlete right off the plate, saving it at the last moment. When he had wandered away Carla's sweet smile soured and she pursed her lips, her eyes searing back into Jean's again.

"I won't pretend to know you better than I do, Jean, but I remember you mentioning your father's extramarital affair—" her voice was rising in volume and they were garnering inquisitive looks from the booth next door.

"Carla, just listen—"

"But if you think you can come into my family, mess with my baby boy, and break his heart—" her voice was pitching higher as it filed with rigeous anger. Jean really hoped she wasn't going to start crying. He never knew what to do when his mom cried. "And you haven't only hurt Eren you have caused a rift between him and his best friend, even Mikasa hasn't been the same since you arrived."

"I don't think—"

"Don't even think of asking Eren for a second chance." It would have been funny to think that Jean would ask Eren for a first chance much less a second chance if he wasn't still worried by the tremble in her voice. "You may be charming, and an excellent cookie decorator, but Eren—with all his flaws—deserves someone who will treat him like a queen."

Jean gave up and drowned his sorrows in a tongue-scalding swig of coffee. It was her precious son who had gotten him into this situation. It was Eren's fault that Carla was upset, not Jean's, and sure as hell not Armin's. Jean stabbed a chunk of his omlete and shoved it into his mouth.

Carla brandished her fork, "And to think I went through all that effort to find you that sweater!"

Something in Jean's omlette tasted off but he didn't even care, shoving in another bite. His throat prickled at the slight rancid taste of the ham.

"...I'm going to have to take that picture down from facebook! What will your mother say?"

What had started as a prickle became a full blown itch. He looked down at his plate and poked at the pink stuff in his omlette. It looked strange, not solid enough to be ham and he could see the way the meat seemed to flake. He sucked a wheezing breath through his irritated throat.

"She was such a sweet woman, what is she going to think when she finds out family history is repeating itself!"

Part of Jean's brain was telling him that he should be offended that Carla would conflate him with his father, but he was distracted by the tight feeling in his lungs. He dropped his fork and pressed his hand to his chest then his throat. He struggled to swallow.

"Carla," he wheezed, "Carla, is there fish in this?"

She blinked at him, momentarily distracted from her tirade. "Didn't you order ham? Mine is the one with the salmon. I won't be sidetracked, Jean."

Jean bolted to his feet. His glass toppled over and the water washed over the table. He patted down his pockets, searching for his phone. He had left his Epipen back at the house, stashed conveniently in front pocket of his backpack. His head felt too light.

"Jean, what are you—"

"Hospital," he wheezed, "hospital."

Carla's jaw snapped shut. She moved faster than Jean had ever seen. Her fingers were like an iron vice around his arm as she hauled him to the car.

 

* * *

 

The drive to the hospital was a blur. He focused on sucking breath in through his swollen wind pipe while Carla raced through the quiet residential streets spewing more swear words than Jean had in his entire vocabulary. He would have been impressed, if he wasnt working so hard at  _not dying_.

Before he knew it, Carla was yanking open the door and manhandling him out of the car. They barged through a pair of glass sliding doors, Jean's arm over Carla's shoulders. He closed his eyes, focusing on the weak stream of breath moving in and out of his mouth.

Carla's voice was loud in his ear, "Epinephrine! This boy needs epinephrine!"

Jean could feel hands under his armpits, but the lights of the hospital were a blur. He was lowered into a wheel chair and wisked away. He closed his eyes, lights sparking behind his eyes, not sure if the vertigo was from movement or air deprivation. Voices buzzed around him but he didnt pay attention until, _finally_ , he felt a sharp pain in his thigh and the blessed, slow loosening in his throat.

 

* * *

 

They kept him in the hospital for what felt like hours. A doctor did a full assessment of his airways after the wheezing quieted down and nurses popped their heads into his room every couple of minutes to make sure he was still breathing. Eventually, out of sheer boredom, he dozed off.

He woke to the sound of rustling paper. Grisha stood next to his bed, flipping through a clipboard. It hadn't even occured to Jean that this was his hospital or that he would be working today.

"Jean, they told me you were here. Carla insisted I look into your case personally."

Jean shifted slightly in his bed and his thigh ached sharply. He gritted his teeth. What a fun side effect.

Grisha must have picked up on his change in expression because he said, "Don't fear. You will be released soon. Let's see." He stared down at the clipboard he had been flipping through. Jean waited for a verdict, but Grisha flipped the page again and continued staring. After what felt like an unnecessarily long time he looked back at Jean with a considering look. "Well, you seem to be breathing fine. No signs of a relapse yet. How do you feel?"

"Uh, fine," Jean rasped. His throat felt like it was full of gravel, but it was _working_.

"Good, good." Grisha adjusted his glasses and gave Jean a considering look.

Jean waited for him to speak, but when Grisha just continued to watch him thoughtfully Jean tugged at the sleeve of his hospital gown awkwardly. "Um, does that... mean I can... go?"

"Oh yes," Grisha tucked his clipboard and adjusted his glasses again, "I was just meditating on how pleased I am that Eren has you in his life. It was somewhat of a shock to discover our son is a homosexual, but you two seem very happy together."

Jean blinked once, then again. He must have heard wrong, but Grisha was just watching him with a bland look. "Were you... at dinner last night?" Jean managed.

"Of course. I know he got heated over something or other, but don't pay any mind—I never do. He takes after his mother that way. They're both so passionate that sometimes you just have to block them out—lovingly, of course."

Jean wasn't sure what to say to that. Just when he thought he'd discovered the depths of insanity the Jaeger family contained, he uncovered more. He carefully pulled back the thin hospital blankets and swung his legs over the side of the bed, his injection site throbbing. "Thanks, Dr. Jaeger. I'm going to get up now."

"Of course. Of course. I'll send you home with a fresh epipen and check on you when I get home."

Grisha had a nurse escort him to the waiting room where he found Carla, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin gathered in a corner. Carla was blowing her nose loudly. She was seated next to Armin, his hand clasped in hers. Jean felt something in his chest loosen at the tacit sign that they were still a family, fighting be damned. Armin himself was staring through the floor, blue eyes glassy. Eren and Mikasa stood in front of them with their backs to Jean. No one noticed as he approached.

"Who died?" Jean asked, when he got close enough for his scratchy voice to carry, "You all look like you're at a funeral."

They turned, their faces transforming into a range of tearful smiles. Carla practically threw herself at him. Enveloping him in her warm, sweater clad arms. "I am so, so sorry." She had a way of rubbing his back while she hugged him that reminded him overwhelmingly of his mother. "I never meant to hurt you and I want you to know that I don't hate you. I am just so, so sorry. And know that I am already drafting a very angry letter to that establishment, that waiter's incompetence is dangerous."

When Jean started going white in the face from having his lungs squeezed so shortly after having just regained the ability to breath, Mikasa stepped forward and gently disentangled Carla. Jean nodded at her gratefully and she returned the gesture. She moved to stand next to Eren, her grip on Carla loosening into something more supportive. And if Jean wasn't mistaken, she quickly socked Eren in the arm as she passed.

"Hey, are you like, okay?" Eren grumbled in Jean's general direction.

"Uh, yeah, I'm fine," Jean mumbled, somewhat shocked that Eren managed to drag even that much of a civil response out of somewhere. But then his attention was wholly consumed by Armin's watery eyes as he rose from his seat.

"Hey," Armin said, his voice trembling slightly.

"Hey," Jean rasped. He forced his hands to stay by his sides, knowing too well that their audience would not approve of the way they wanted to plant themselves on Armin's hips or bury themselves in his hair.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Armin wrapped his arms around his shoulders.

Armin must have felt the way he tense because he whispered, "It's okay. We talked to Carla, everything is sorted out."

Jean felt himself relax, relief washing over him. _It's okay_ , everything was going to be fine. He relaxed into Armin's arms, his hands settling onto his hips, forehead resting against Armin's and just breathed.

 

* * *

 

On the drive home, Jean was awarded shotgun on account of almost suffocating and feeling like someone had taken a hammer to his thigh. He collapsed into the seat while Eren and Armin piled into the two middle seats and Mikasa climbed into the back row.

Carla pulled the van out of the hospital parking lot, still apologizing.

"I am so sorry, Jean, truly. Even if you cheated on my son, you never deserved this. If you had met under different circumstances, I would be so happy for Armin and you. I _am_  so happy for you two, we mothers just feel very strongly about our children, you understand."

Jean closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Even after laying in a hospital bed for hours he felt exhausted.

"And after talking to Armin and Eren," Carla continued to prattle, "I understand that everything has turned out for the best, even if it took infidenlity to get there. I think we all learned from this experience."

Jean snorted, "Yeah. I learned that I am never agreeing to pretend to be some random Craigslister's date again and that Eren is the worst fake boyfriend ever."

There was a horrible screeching of breaks and Jean was thrown forward against his seatbelt as the car slammed to a halt in the middle of the road. Heart pounding, he looked out the windshield for what they were about to run into but the road ahead of them was empty.

"What?" Carla's voice was oddly flat.

Jean looked over to find that her fingers were clenched around the wheel, her lips drawing into a flat line and her nostrils flaring as she stared straight ahead. Something clicked into place.

"You guys didn't tell her?! Armin, you said you told her!"

"Tell me what?" Carla asked too politely as she eased the mini van back into motion. In the rear view mirror, Armin, Eren, and Mikasa were making identically frantic _abort, abort_ hand gestures. 

Jean was done. He was over it. He was confused, he was tired, and he was in a lot of goddamn pain, so he sighed and told the truth.

"Eren and I were never actually boyfriends. We met on Craigslist because I was bored and he needed someone to screw with his parents. Match made in internet heaven."

"So your relationship was fake from the beginning?" Jean had never heard her voice so controlled, or so deadly. It occurred to him that if he wasn't so totally done he would be scared.

The only way Jean was going to get out of this unscathed was to prove that it was all Eren's fault, so he kept talking. "He was pissed about you guys not supporting the whole art school thing and thought—for some brilliant reason—that bringing home a boyfriend would be the best way to get back at you."

"So," Carla said neatly, "this whole Christmas has been a lie?  _Everything this family has gone through in the past few days has been a lie?_ "

The car was deathly silent. Anticipation, like the prickle of static electricity before a thunderstorm, rippled through the air. Jean felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. Carla was about to explode and everyone one of them knew it.

When she finally spoke the control in her voice was dangerous. "Son—"

"MIKASA'S GAY!"

There was a sudden flurry of movement and Jean craned his neck to see Eren clutching his left kidney as Mikasa collapsed his chair from behind, sandwiching him between the back and the seat. Her face was grim as she held the seat down so he couldn't extract himself.

"Don't put this off on your sister," Carla snapped, craning to watch them in the mirror, "Mikasa, is this true?"

Mikasa met her question with a blank gaze. "Yes..." she trailed off like it was a question.

"Well, know I support you one hundred percent and love you unconditionally." She sent Mikasa a motherly look before turning back around to navigate them down the road. Hysteria seeped into her voice as her control finally snapped, "But I can't believe you were all lying to me!" She swerved around a corner and they all simultaneously reached for the safety handles. "Eren was lying to me, Jean was lying to me, Mikasa was hiding this from me—what about you, Armin? Anything you want to share?"

Armin stammered from the backseat, "Well... I'm gay?"

Carla laid on the horn at someone who attempted to enter an intersection in from of her. "Yeah, I figured that one out. No thanks to any of you." He voice was still rising in volume until she was nearly screaming. "Why didn't you tell me? DID YOU THINK I WOULD OVER REACT!? All you chidren keeping secrets from your mother because she's old and weird and CARES ABOUT YOU! Don't you have any respect for the mother who is putting all of you through school?! Except you, Mikasa, we're very proud of your full ride, and yours, Armin," she took a hand off the wheel to wave it vaguely back at Armin and Mikasa. "So it's really just you, Eren! My own son, my own flesh and blood would lie and keep secrets from me—"

They were quickly turning into a traffic nightmare. The streets were thankfully mostly empty and well salted, but Carla was hardly keeping to her lane as she sped down a side street at forty-five miles per hour. Jean was starting to wonder if he should make her pull over before they caused an accident. He hadn't survive his throat swelling shut to die smashed against a windshield.

"Mom," in the backseat Eren was wheezing, still fighting to right his seat, "I can't breath—"

"YOU DONT DESERVE TO BREATHE, EREN JEAGER, AFTER THE WAY YOU'VE TREATED YOUR MOTHER AND YOUR BEST FRIEND AND YOUR FAKE BOYFRIEND AND PROBABLY YOUR SISTER TOO."

Jean was officially out of his depth. He glanced back and Armin caught his eye, sending him a commiserating grimace. Jean couldn't find a hint of surprise on his face. Armin had known this would happen, this is what they meant when they said that they couldn't tell Carla. Jean had created a monster.

The longer Carla ranted the more control she regained, until they were speeding through the streets of Shingshina without fear of hitting anything but while listening to a detailed list of every opportunity they had had to tell her the truth.

Jean felt relief wash through him as they turned onto the street the Jaegers lived on. Escape was so close he could taste it.

There was a canvaser, or maybe a charity collector standing on the porch as they pulled up. She was small but official looking in a black puffer vest with something Jean couldn't read on the back over a white hoodie. Carla's rant momentarily detoured to bemoan solicitors who didn't respect the fact that families should not be disturbed during the holidays.

The girl turned around to watch them as they got out of the car. Jean, slowed down by the ache in his leg, got out the same time Mikasa climbed out from the way back, which is why he noticed when she froze.

Carla marched straight up to the porch, a strained smile in place, "And who might you be?" she inquired, one second away from blowing another fuse.

The girl met her smile with an emotionless expression. "I'm Annie."

_Oh._ Jean's head swiveled back in Mikasa's direction to find her looking truly like a deer in the headlights.  _Fuck._

 

* * *

 

"Yo, Captain. Did you know you have an uncanny habit of calling when I'm naked? Merry late Christmas, by the way."

Mikasa sat huddled on the bathroom floor, her back pressed to the door just in case any one jimmied the lock. Ymir spoke to her out of the phone pressed to her ear.

"That's because you're almost always naked. I need help."

"Sure, you know I've got you if you need anything," Mikasa's voice must have sounded weird because the usually sly tenor of Ymir's voice was replaced by genuine worry. "What's up?"

Mikasa closed her eyes and dropped her head back so it thudded against the door. "Annie's here."

"Here... where?"

"Here here. In my home, at the kitchen table, with my mother. I think they're eating cookies."

"I don't understand the problem. Does your mom make really shitty cookies or something?"

"I think Annie might be my girlfriend," the words fell out of Mikasa's mouth without polish or the roundabout excuses she had planned on feeding Ymir. She squeezed her eyes closed tighter.

There was silence on the other line. After a second Ymir spluttered, "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"No. I mean like Are. You. Serious? You didn't know that already?"

"What?" Mikasa's breath hitched.

"Dude," Ymir was gaining some of her usual smarmy tone, which meant she was amused, "How many times have you slept together?"

Mikasa pushed herself up, too agitated now to keep sitting, she paced the length of the small bathroom, "I don't think that's relevant."

"Was it more than three?" Ymir pressed.

"Yes."

"How many more?"

"Four or five times all together." Mikasa said as casually as she could, although she knew the actual number was six. Each of those encounters was seared pleasantly into her memory.

Ymir squawked on the other end of the line, "SHE ONLY SLEPT WITH ME THREE AND A HALF TIMES!"

"Excuse me?" Mikasa gritted out. She knew Ymir and Annie had hooked up occasionally before Ymir met Christa—Annie had screwed every sapphic leaning member of their soccer team at least once—but Mikasa hardly thought it was relevant right now.

"You have indirectly slept with me more than I have indirectly slept with you!" Ymir sounded infuriated. "And also you two are totally a thing. Annie never sleeps with anyone more than three times—you're practically married at this point. I thought you knew that?"

Why was this bathroom suddenly so warm? Mikasa tugged at the front of her sweater trying to increase ventilation as heat crept up her neck. "But you said—"

Ymir made a dismissive noise, "The half doesn't count, it was the result of Krista blue-balling me and two bottles of Jim Beam."

Mikasa locked eyes with her reflection in the mirror above the sink. God, what had she gotten herself into? Annie was in her house, with her parents and Eren, not fifteen minutes after they had all been caught in a massive lie. Her cheeks were tinged with pink. Her palms were sweating.

"Okay, but seriously," Ymir continued and Mikasa jumped—she had almost forgot someone was still witnessing her freakout. "Annie totally thinks you're a couple."

A quiet, "fuck," escaped Mikasa's lips.

"Did you not know that?" Ymir sounded like she was getting concerned again."Did you just think you were friends that touched boobies four or five times?"

"I introduced her that way," Mikasa said, mortification twisting in her gut.

"AS FRIENDS THAT TOUCH BOOBIES?! TO YOUR MOTHER?! YOU ARE SO BADASS, I WANT TO BE YOU WHEN I GROW UP."

"No!" Mikasa hurried to correct Ymir's delighted, scandalized assumption, "As my friend. As just my friend."

"Oh. _Oh_. Oh, shit."

"Yeah." Mikasa scrubbed the back of her hand across her forehead. Everything she thought she knew was turned on its head. She had genuinely thought that she was the one who was too attached, that Annie had plenty of girls she still hooked-up with regularly, that she sent all of her hook ups sexy snap chats, and stopped by random friends' houses to meet their families and drive them back to school—in retrospect, it had been pretty obvious. Mikasa was an idiot and she had doubled down on it by introducing Annie as just a friend.

Annie was as flighty as she was reticent to let people get too close—if she interpreted Mikasa's thick skulled mistake as actual disinterest she might bolt.

"Shit, Captain, put me on facetime."

"What? Why?"

"Because you fucked up and I want to shake my finger at you."

"But you're naked," Mikasa said weakly. And then, "I did?"

She could _hear_  Ymir rolling her eyes. "I'm _always_ naked, and you know damn well you did. If you're not going to facetime me, I'm hanging up so you can go fix it."

"But—"

There was silence. Ymir had already hung up. Mikasa clenched her fingers around her phone and debated whether or not getting Eren to light the Christmas tree on fire would be enough of a distraction to erase the rest of this disaster of a day from everyone's memory. 

 

* * *

 

 

Armin couldn't help but watch Annie curiously as he and Jean set the table with paper plates for the pizza which Carla, in a state of exaggeratedly overwrought nerves, had ordered. She sat at the head of the table, hands buried in the center pocket of her hoodie and expression inscrutable as she waited for Mikasa to return from wherever she had run off to.

So this was the girl Mikasa had chosen. It made sense he supposed. She was quiet and intense like Mikasa, and she had the type of gaze that made Armin feel like he was being sized up and found lacking every time he was caught in it—just like Mikasa. She was pretty too, in a Russian, one-wrong-move-and-you'll-find-a-knife-in-your-spleen sort of way. Armin had never expected small and blonde to be Mikasa's type, but he supposed they looked good standing next to each other.

And he was infinitely grateful that she had shown up when she did—the introduction of one of Mikasa's friends (once Mikasa had stopped looking like she had a hernia and found the wherewithal to introduce Annie) had sufficiently distracted Carla from her tirade.

"I am so sorry that we're so disorganized, Annie," Carla twittered, setting a bottle of wine and a pitcher of apple cider on the table. "You caught us at a turbulent time. We had a bit of a spat in the car, and I just found out that all of my little ducklings are gay!"

"I think I prefer the label bisexual, actually," Jean said thoughtfully at the same time Eren scoffed, "Pssh, I'm not gay!"

Armin squeezed Jean's knee under the table and turned to Eren with a warning look. Now was not the time for his particularly strange brand of homophobia.

"Oh yeah? What about that sculpting professor?" Jean shot back.

"What?" Carla asked in her dangerously polite voice. Her wide gaze shifting back to Eren and her smile hardening.

"Leave Levi out of this, dickmunch!" Eren squawked, jumping to his feet and knocking his paper plate to the floor. "Who the fuck even told you about him?"

"Your professor?" Carla's voice was rising in pitch. "One of your _current_ professors?"

Eren rolled his eyes and slumped back into his chair with a huff, "It's not like I slept with him for better grades. Haven't had to, yet."

Carla settled daintily in the chair across from Eren, her gaze laser focused on her son. "That doesn't sound like a very healthy relationship. You know how easily a teacher could take advantage of a student?"

"My relationships are none of your business!"

Mikasa edged back into the room, eyed the Carla/Eren situation, and took an empty seat by Annie. Annie turned to her and lifted one perfectly arched brow. Mikasa just shrugged and some sort of wordless conversation seemed to pass between the two of them.

"The love life of my baby boy is my business," Carla stated, her voice slipping towards the hysterical. "I can't believe you didn't tell me! How old is he? Are you being safe? Is he married?!"

"ANNIE IS MIKASA'S GIRLFRIEND!" Eren shouted in desperation.

Silence. Jean buried his face in his hands and Armin felt the urge to do the same. Carla pivoted slowly toward Mikasa—Eren's diversion tactics weren't graceful, but they were, occasionally, successful. At the end of the table, Mikasa was a statue. Armin was pretty sure she wasn't even breathing.

Surprisingly it was Annie who broke the silence. She fixed Mikasa with a piercing look, "Am I?"

He could have sworn he heard crunching as Mikasa slowly rotated her head to return Annie's look, but she met the girl's gaze evenly. "If you want to be."

"Okay."

They both turned back to their gaggle of confused spectators, their faces as expressionless as if nothing of import had happened. Jean jabbed a finger into Armin's thigh and mouthed _what the hell just happened_  in his direction. Armin shrugged. It was Mikasa. Was Jean expecting fireworks and grand professions of affection?

Carla clapped her hands, hysteria morphing into excitement. "Oh, how sweet! I'm so happy that two of my little ducklings are in relationships that I approve of!"

Annie and Mikasa's expressions didn't change, but Armin noticed that they had turned complimentary shades of pink.

He felt the warmth of Carla's approval in his own chest and reached for Jean's hand under the table. Carla's blessing meant more to him than he could really articulate, and now that he had it he felt a sudden urge to cry. Jean squeezed his fingers and Armin scooted his chair over enough to tilt his head onto Jean's shoulder.

Down the table, Eren grumbled and reached for a slice of pizza. He wasn't dumb enough to not realize that he was on at least three people's shit lists, but he wasn't going to be graceful about it. They all took Eren's lead, and soon enough the wine was poured and people were chatting over dinner. They all had a lot to learn about Annie, but Armin did his best to make sure she wasn't stuck permanently in the spotlight. Mikasa, clearly in agreement that her newfound girlfriend needed to be shielded from Carla, contributed to the conversation more than she had all break.

"Annie, it's such a shame you weren't here until today!" Carla beamed as she gathered the paper plates and began replacing them with yesterdays rhubarb pie _a la mode_. Having her family gathered around the dinner table to consume greasy pizza had clearly bolstered her spirits, and the events of that afternoon were rapidly feeling like some strange dream. The whole group seemed more cheerful, though whether that was the empty bottle of wine or the fact that all of their secrets were finally out in the open was anyone's guess. "I would love to get to know you better. Is there anyway I can convince you two to stick around another day?"

Annie glanced at Mikasa and shrugged, "We're not rushed."

"Excellent! We've been waiting for one of our children to bring home a real significant other for so long. I have so many plans for what we can do together tomorrow!"

"Just try not to poison this one, Mom," Eren quipped, a dribble of ice cream staining the corner of his mouth.

Jean chuckled good naturally and leaned around Armin to warn Annie, "Avoid brunch at all costs."

"Best of luck," Armin added. "You'll need it."

Mikasa just shrugged, then with the driest tone he had ever heard her use said, "I'm just glad Armin is leaving so he can't seduce this one too."

The table burst into laughter.

Jean slung his arm over Armin's chair, his fingers stroking the back of Armin's neck, "Nah, I've got this one on lock."

Armin bit his lip, embarrassed, but across the table Carla was cooing. Grisha—who had materialized at some point—was looking between them, and then at Eren, and then at Mikasa and Annie, as if trying to solve some complicated riddle.

"You two are too sweet! I am so glad we get to keep you in the family, Jean." Carla leaned forward and in a trademark Jaeger stage-whisper said, "I love my son, but I think you and Armin have always had better chemistry."

"Whatever, Mom," Eren scoffed. "I'm keeping the sweater."

"Do I want to know what the hell you all are talking about?" Annie asked in a cool monotone.

"You probably don't. It's a really, really unnecessarily complicated story," Armin groaned as Jean stole a bite of his rhubarb pie, his own plate already scraped clean. 

"I think," Grisha piped up, and they all looked over at him in surprise, "I think I missed something."

He looked around at them with such a genuinely consternated expression that Armin couldn't help but laugh. He felt Jean start to shake with next to him and heard Eren's barking guffaw and Carla's full belly laugh all join in. He buried his face into Jean's shoulder and laughed until his side ached. It finally felt like things had fallen back into place.

 

* * *

 

When Armin woke up early the next morning curled around Jean, he smiled and pressed a kiss to the nape of Jean's neck then slipped quietly away to fetch Pride and Prejudice from where it waited on his night stand. He was almost at the best part: when a lovesick Elizabeth and newly hopeful Darcy meet on the moor and Elizabeth finally returns Darcy's affections. He settled against the headboard, the length of his thigh along Jean's back and quietly lost himself in the romance of it all.

Eventually, Jean stretched and rolled over. He blinked sleepily up at Armin, an giving him a lazy smile, "You are a much more pleasant face to wake up to."

"I promise no kidnapping." Armin carded an affectionate hand through Jean's hair and Jean's eyes fluttered shut as he leaned into Armin's touch.

"You excited to go home?"

Jean shrugged the shoulder he wasn't laying on, "Yeah. It'll be nice not to be surrounded by drama all the time. I mean, I live with Connie and Sasha, but they're a different type of crazy. What about you?"

Armin chuckled, "Yeah, I understand, I think Eren's crazied himself out for a month at least. I am excited to go back to school though. There are some classes I'm looking forward to this semester."

Jean pinched the hem of Armin's sleep shirt, fiddling with it between his long fingers. "Is school all you're looking forward to?"

Armin closed the photo album thoughtfully and set it on the bedside table. "Well, I'm starting the grad school hunt as well. I should have some course catalogues waiting for me—"

"Do you want to go on a date?" Jean blurted.

Armin blinked down at him, startled. "What? Now?"

Jean didn't meet his eyes, still fiddling with the fabric of Armin's sleep shirt, "Nah, I mean like in Trost. Later. When we get back. Like _dating_ dates."

Armin cocked his head, not really understanding the urgency in Jean's tone, "Yes?"

"Is that a question?"

"Sort of?" He furrowed his brow trying to work out what was going through Jean's head. "Are you worried that I won't want to keep seeing you when we get back to Trost? Because I do."

"Oh, thank God," Jean wrapped his arms around Armin's waist and buried his face in Armin's hip. "I'm not good with words."

Armin bit back a smile and scratched his fingers through the short hair at the base of Jean's neck. "You're really not. Not this early anyway." He felt a steady warmth swelling in his chest. "Jean Kirstein, I like you a whole lot and I would like to be your boyfriend if that's alright with you."

"Yes. Good. Okay. Boyfriend is a good thing." He groaned and buried his face in Armin's hip. "Oh, God, make me stop talking."

Armin laughed and the sound filled the attic. "C'mon, let's get you some coffee."

"Yes. Good." Jean struggled into a sitting position and Armin caught his jaw in one hand, stealing a kiss from his boyfriend before taking him by the hand and helping him out of bed.

 

* * *

 

They left Eren in the house, frantically scrambling to do all the packing he was supposed to have already done (and running into every conceivable piece of furniture in the process) with the warning that if he wasn't ready in fifteen minutes they were leaving without him. Carla offered Grisha's help to get their bags to the car, but somehow it ended up being Mikasa and Annie loading bags into the trunk as Carla fawned over Armin and Jean in the driveway.

"I am going to miss you both so much!" She gave them a watery smile. "I know this year had its ups and downs, but the holiday season always brings out the worst and the best!"

In Armin's opinion it was a generous over simplification, but he would roll with it.

"You will come next year, right, Jean?"

Jean beamed at her and his hand found Armin's, "I'd love to."

Armin looked pointedly down at the salted driveway, certain his face would betray the sudden giddy burst in his stomach. _Jean wants to come to Christmas again. Jean still wants to be with me a year from now._

The front door slammed open, rattling the house's windows, and Eren bounded diagonally across the unshoveled yard. He had a scarf and what looked like half a dozen charging cables draped around his neck and his iPod held triumphantly over his head. "I CALL SHOTGUN!"

He made an attempt at the passenger door, but Carla caught him with an arm to his chest. "You aren't going to leave without saying goodbye to your mother are you?" She pulled him in for a bear hug.

Armin wandered around to the back of the car to say goodbye to Mikasa, tugging Jean along with him by the hand.

"Bye, Mikasa, Annie."

"Bye, Armin," Mikasa gave him an awkward one armed side hug which they both quickly extracted themselves from.

Armin turned to Annie, "Don't worry, we're taking fifty percent of the crazy away with us." Annie just blinked at him. "Anyway, you should come visit us in Trost some time."

They gave him matching inscrutable stares. Armin had no idea if they were accepting his invitation, but he thought he understood a little bit more about their relationship.

When final goodbyes were made and Carla, Grisha, Mikasa, and Annie had retreated to watch them leave from the relative warmth of the porch, Armin settled into the driver's seat. He glanced through the passenger side window where Eren and Jean were both clinging to the handle on the outside of the door, ramming their shoulders together.

"I CALLED SHOTGUN!" Eren yelled.

"Get off, you turd!" Jean fired back.

Armin rolled down the window, "Eren, give Jean shotgun."

"NO! I called it, and I don't want to die in a fiery crash because you let him give you road head!"

Armin resisted the urge to bang his forehead against the steering wheel and glanced at the porch, hoping Eren's voice wasn't loud enough to carry. "Eren!" he hissed through gritted teeth, "That's not going to happen!"

"You say that now, but I value my life!"

Armin rolled his eyes and twisted his keys in the ignition. The passenger door flew open and with a triumphant shout Eren toppled into the seat. His victory was short lived as Jean climbed in after him, sitting heavily on his lap and wiggling his bony ass obnoxiously into Eren's thighs. Armin's car was not large. Jean's shins pressed against the glove compartment.

"Get off!" Eren lisped, his face sandwiched between Jean's back and the back of the seat. "God! Stop grinding on me with your gay ass."

"Hey, hey Eren," Jean taunted, "Guess what was in this gay ass last night?"

"OH. MY. GOD!" Eren shoved Jean into the glove compartment and dove over the gear shift for the back seat. Armin ducked, avoiding a flailing sneaker. Jean wasn't as lucky and took a kick to the chin.

Eren collapsed sulkily into the back seat as Jean buckled his seat belt massaging his chin smugly.

"In my mother's house?" Eren griped. "I'm disgusted with you, Armin."

"The correct answer was nothing, loser."

"I don't believe you. You're gross."

Armin decided to overlook their banter about what sex he may or may not have had in the past twenty-four hours and just be grateful that their bickering had become more like brothers and less like they genuinely wanted to rip each other's throats out. He reversed out of the drive and sent a final salute to the loved ones waving at them from the porch. It had been a strange visit, but as he pulled away and Jean fiddled with the stereo in the seat next to him he couldn't regret the way it played out.

They made it to the highway before Eren made his final stand.

_Thud. Thud. Thud._

"If you don't stop kicking my seat, Eren, I swear to God I will play Bright Eyes and suck Armin off right here."

Armin nearly swerved into the next lane, "Jean!"

"Ugh, you're the worst. And your taste in music SUCKS. Aren't you gays supposed to be classy?"

Jean and Armin shared a commiserating look. But Jean's threat was enough to shut Eren up and they continued down the highway in peace, nothing but the highway between them and Trost.

As Shingashina fell further and further behind them, Armin waited for the post-holiday melancholy to set it, but it never did. Usually driving to Trost after Christmas with the Jaegers felt like returning to the real world of responsibilities and the new set of obligations that the new year inevitably entailed. But Armin realized that the giddy sense of anticipation he usually felt bubbling in his stomach as he drove _to_ Shingashina was back. He was heading into something new and exciting, and he couldn't wait. He glanced at Jean where he was gazing out the window, his whole body bobbing slightly to the song playing through the stereo. Yeah, Armin was looking forward to the new year.

 

 

 

 


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One year later. One year after matching Christmas sweaters, dick-shaped replicas of the angelic host, a stolen first kiss, and a trip to the hospital, our motley group of heroes return to Shingashina.

Armin was skimming over the last paragraph of his thesis proposal, debating whether "exploration" or "interrogation" was a better word to describe the type of paper he wanted to develop, when a piece of lettuce fell onto his printout. He blinked, realizing he had been holding a forkful of Caesar salad halfway to his mouth for at least a minute. He picked up the fallen lettuce and quickly shoved it into his mouth, trying to brush away the smudge of oily dressing left on the paper.

"I totally saw that."

Armin looked up to find Jean smiling cheekily at him. He looked so handsome in his server's pressed white button down, neat black apron, and tie that Armin always found himself staring a bit longer than necessary.

"I punch out in five. Quick, give me another question."

Armin turned to the open GRE book at his elbow and skimmed for a question he hadn't quizzed Jean on yet.

MP's Eatery was the type of upscale cafe that had a bevy of well-tipping regulars, but wasn't so stiff as to mind when their best waiter's boyfriend set up with a text book or two in a quiet corner. It was a light-year away from running deliveries for Steamies Pizza.

Jean stayed just long enough to confirm he'd answered the question right before bustling away with an extra spring in his step. Armin gazed after him fondly. The tailored black slacks were another perk of Jean's new job that Armin deeply appreciated.

Armin's phone vibrated, pulling him out of his reverie.

**From: Eren**

**b there in 10!!!!**

He sincerely hoped Eren wasn't texting and driving. He packed up his thesis proposal and Jean's GRE study book, feeling the liberating knowledge that he wouldn't have to think about research methods or workciteds for the next week.

Jean wandered back over, his apron gone and a backpack over his shoulder.

"Eren's on the way." Armin said, counting out bills to leave on the table and grabbing his duffle from underneath.

"I can't believe we're letting him drive."

"I fully intend on driving, if we can pry him away from the wheel. I just don't think we should push the Camry after what happened over thanksgiving."

Jean grimaced. The memory of Armin's car blowing a fuse and Jean's stepdad's well-intentioned but misguided car repair bonding session was still fresh in both their minds.

"By the way, my Mom's figured out how to use Shutterfly so I wouldn't be surprised if Carla has already received half a dozen prints of you in those coveralls."

Armin shrugged, "Carla has worse, believe me."

They shuffled toward the exit, exchanging holiday farewells with Jean's coworkers as they went. When they reached the glass front doors there was a honk and they spotted Eren's black Honda. Eren was half hanging out of the passenger side window, his hands cupped around his mouth as he shouted something that there was no chance of them hearing across the parking lot and through a pane of plate glass.

"What an asshole," Jean muttered, no bite behind his words. He held the door open for Armin.

They trudged through the frosty parking lot. Their breath puffing in front of them in pale clouds.

"Get in losers we're going to Christmas," Eren hollered as he threw the car door open and beamed at them.

Armin took a moment to wonder how just a year ago none of them, Eren included, thought that Eren was more than heteroflexible. But, their Christmas misadventures had sent Eren on a whirlwind of self-discovery and aggressive experimentation. Now he stood before them in skin tights skinny jeans and his garish "Keep the Yuletide Gay" sweater, a stud in each ear and black polish on his fingernails. It was like he had raced to fill as many gay aesthetic stereotypes as he could in the last few months. He even had a side cut, which he insisted was infinitely more fashionable than Jean's "tired lesbian undercut".

Eren opened the trunk and helped Jean find space for their bags while Armin circled around to the diver's side door, hoping to get behind the wheel before Eren could protest. He was reaching for the handle when the window rolled down.

"Artlert." The man behind the wheel greeted.

"Oh. Hi, Levi. I didn't know you were coming."

Levi picked an invisible piece of dirt from under his fingernail, "I love Christmas, as much as your brother loves gagging on dick," he said in his signature emotionless drawl. Eren and Levi had been dating? Screwing? Torturing Armin with their dramatics? for nine months, and Armin still hadn't figured out if Levi had a sense of humor or just had the filthiest vocabulary of anyone he knew. "Think I would miss this? You get shotgun."

"What!" Eren was already opening the passenger door. "Daddyyyyyyy," he whined, "don't you want me to sit next to you?"

"You lost that privileged at the last stoplight. Arlert, get in the car."

Armin acquiesced and claimed the passenger seat while Eren dropped sulkily into the back seat. There was a scuffle and Armin turned to see Jean clutching his shin.

"You're a barbarian," he shoved Eren. "What the fuck did you do anyways?"

"I have one rule in this car," Levi said calmly, rolling the car out of the parking lot, "and that is no road head."

Eren made a pathetic simpering noise in the back seat, "You weren't so strict that one time..." He squawked when Jean shoved him again.

"It doesn't count if someone else is driving the car, Eren."

"So," Armin clapped his hands to drown out Eren's continued protests, and continued in a voice that was arguably too loud for the enclosed space of the car, "Levi, you look like you're ready for Christmas." He gestured to the chunky red sweater that matched Eren's.

"I couldn't feel more festive if I was riding Santa himself."

"Hey! Is that my sweater? I've been looking for that!" Jean exclaimed, leaning into the space between the driver and passenger's seats.

"By all means, try to take it back," Levi said coolly. "You want to match that idiot? Just don't come crying to me when he wakes you up at two in the morning dressed as one of Santa's elves and begging to be spanked."

There was a beat of stunned silence. Even Armin wasn't sure how to recover the conversation after that one.

After a moment Jean let out a low whistle, "Wow. It's been five minutes and I already feel like I need adult supervision."

Eren chose that moment to jump in. "Isn't he wonderful? He's such a better boyfriend than you were."

"He—"

"I—"

"—wasn't your boyfriend." Armin and Jean tried to protest at the same time, but Eren was already barreling ahead.

"My mom is going to love him. This is going to be way better than last year."

A truck swerved into the lane in front of them, cutting them off and Levi laid on the horn. "You short-dicked reindeer fucker!" he yelled out the window.

"You're right, Eren," Jean said his voice overly cheerful. "Your mom in going to like him so much more than she liked me."

Armin took a deep breath through his nose and out his mouth. So much for a peaceful Christmas. In the handful of months Eren and Levi had rekindled their on-again-off-again train wreck of a relationship, Armin hadn't had a single conversation with both of them in the room where he hadn't been forced to learn some unwanted detail about their sex life. Levi was a phase Armin had hoped Eren would get over once he was done experimenting with his sexuality, but Eren had proudly declared himself pan a few months ago and Levi was still in the picture. Armin debated how many hours they would last in the Jaeger house before Levi said something vulgar enough that Carla would try to kick him out. She had been nothing but indulgent about Eren and Jean's most sexual fake dating comments, but neither of them had the imagination to come up with the things that spewed from Levi's mouth.

Armin's phone vibrated in his lap.

**From: Jean Kirstein <3**

**Ten bucks says Carla's going to think Eren brought a fake boyfriend again.**

Armin caught Jean's eyes in the rear-view mirror and bit back a smile.

**From: Armin <3 <3 <3**

**Poor Carla. For her sake I wish Eren *was* bringing a fake boyfriend.**

A movement in his periphery caught Armin's attention. Levi was making a rude gesture at the slow moving car in front of them.

Well, at least it was safe to say nothing was going to be Armin and Jean's fault this year.

His phone vibrated again.

**From: Jean Kirstein <3**

**Here's to another crazy Jaeger Christmas.**

 


End file.
